Mandated Organisations play a unique bi-directional role in the EOSC Association, representing national interests and coordinating input to and from their respective constituencies.
Appointed by their governments, they are responsible for coordinating policy alignment, fostering engagement, and facilitating communication between EOSC-A and their respective communities. The unique role of Mandated Organisations is detailed in the Charter for Mandated Organisations, adopted at the EOSC Association’s 4th General Assembly meeting in May 2022.
Charter for Mandated Organisations of the EOSC Association
This Charter was co-drafted by representatives of the Mandated Organisations and the EOSC-A Board of Directors. Its purpose is to enhance the effectiveness of the Mandated Organisations by providing them with a detailed, structured framework within which to execute their responsibilities within the broader EOSC Association membership.
Introduction
The EOSC Association has made great progress since its start in 2020. Before transitioning into its full operations on 1 November 2021, the organisation had already developed its internal structures with a Board of nine Directors, five Advisory Groups with 13 embedded Task Forces consisting of more than 400 community representatives eager to shape the European Open Science Cloud Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). The Co-Programmed European Partnership for EOSC (“the Partnership”) was launched with the start of Horizon Europe on 23 June 2021. The EC and the EOSC Association are the two contractual parties of the Partnership’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The Member States and Associated Countries (MS/AC) are committed to supporting the EOSC Partnership among others by appointing Mandated Organisations (MOs) to EOSC-A, who are able to express views that represent the broader engagement and specificities of their respective national research system.
The Council’s conclusions on the New European Research Area (ERA) in November 2021 – which featured EOSC as Priority Action 1 – paved the way for refining the roles within the Tripartite Collaboration of the EOSC Association (as the voice of the community), the European Commission, and the EOSC Steering Board.
With a maturing institutional framework and overall engagement, the EOSC Association, which has grown to more than 230 Members and Observers, is now in the position to better define the role of its Mandated Organisations.
Statutory role
According to the Articles of Association (Art. 2.1):
“Each Member State or Associated Country that has one or more organisations that are Members of the Association may appoint one (1) Member to act as its Mandated Organisation, to represent national interests. In addition, the EIROforum is permitted to mandate one of its members to represent the views of the Forum. Mandated Organisations can fall into any member category.”
In other words: if one or more organisations are accepted as a Member of the EOSC-A, the government of the Member State or Associated Country can appoint one of these organisations to become a Mandated Organisation of the EOSC Association.
Bidirectional role
Appointed by the governments of their countries to represent relevant national research stakeholders, MOs can play a special – bidirectional – role in the EOSC Association by coordinating input to and from their respective constituencies.
This includes providing input relevant to the broader engagement and priorities relevant to their national research system to the EOSC Association, and vice-versa. Mandated Organisations can become the backbone of EOSC-A membership by providing stability and strength; they will promote consensus among regular Members and Observers of their constituencies regarding this refined role.
Remark: Here the word “constituencies” is used instead of “countries” since not all MOs come from specific countries. However, since most MOs come from specific countries, in the rest of this text the words “countries” and “national” will be used and should be read as “constituency” if an MO was appointed by a specific country.
Hence, Mandated Organisations have extra influence and extra tasks/duties.
In addition, the Mandated Organisations can:
Towards the EOSC-A as a whole
- Coordinate the view from the stakeholders in their countries;
- Consult the EOSC-A members and active participants (Task Force members, etc.) in their constituencies on important decisions to be taken by EOSC-A.
Towards the stakeholders in their countries
- Translate and communicate the mission of EOSC in the national context;
- Encourage and facilitate communication between and alignment of relevant funding agencies (public and private);
- Raise any needs of the communities to the respective EOSC-SB member;
- Inform Members, Observers, members of the EOSC National Initiative (if any) and other stakeholders on the development of EOSC and help to coordinate the discussion in their countries;
- Translate the European developments to help structure the infrastructure within their countries;
- Monitor and suggest proper alignment of infrastructures and policies within the countries and Europe;
- Reach out to relevant stakeholders and help grow the EOSC-A member base in order to increase community representation and impact.
Contribute to relevant activities on a national level
- Organisation of so-called National Tripartite meetings and events;
- Regular meetings in the respective country with EOSC-A Members and Observers, also inviting Task Force members;
- Support EOSC-A in its task to produce an annual Additional Activities Plan;
- Promote monitoring activities of EOSC-A;
- Maintain contact with beneficiaries of relevant EU-funded projects (closing of H2020 and kick-off of HE).
(Inter-)MO activities facilitated by EOSC-A Board and Secretariat
- Regular (bimonthly or quarterly) meetings of MOs with Board and Secretariat;
- Set-up of a dedicated MO area on the future EOSC-A community platform for sharing of information;
- Promotion of national activities on EOSC-A website and social media channels.
