The EOSC Federation Handbook will comprehensively address the purpose, structure, governance, architecture and operations of the EOSC Federation.

The Tripartite Group, which has the remit within the EOSC Partnership’s Tripartite Governance to steer the community development of the EOSC Federation, has endorsed EOSC-A to continue to lead the community-wide co-creation of the EOSC Federation Handbook.

The decisions taken by the EOSC Tripartite Governance on the EOSC Federation will be reflected in the Handbook, which will through this process of iteration become the reference document for the operation of the EOSC Federation.

The EOSC Federation Handbook will be written collaboratively with open consultations, meetings, events and sprints.

Update: 04 March 2025

The Handbook writing team has consolidated the feedback from both the Tripartite and the EOSC EU Node to converge on an updated draft first edition to be shared with the participants in the March Kick-off workshop for the EOSC Federation. The draft Handbook will assist in enrolling the first wave of Candidate EOSC Nodes in the spring, and will in turn be revised in the fall based on their early experiences.

Update: 04 February 2025

The first full draft of the EOSC Federation Handbook has been written collaboratively through weekly meetups and monthly review meetings, led by EOSC-A. A community consultation on the first three chapters (out of a total of six) ran through November 2024, and a full draft incorporating the consultation feedback was submitted to the EOSC Tripartite Governance in December 2024. This draft, including now all six chapters, was also distributed to the participants in the EOSC Winter School on 20 January.

This month, the Handbook writing team will work to consolidate the feedback from both the Tripartite and the EOSC EU Node in order to converge on an updated draft of the Handbook to be released in March. The draft Handbook will assist in enrolling the first wave of EOSC Candidate Nodes in the spring, and will in turn be revised in the fall based on their early experiences.

EOSC Federation Handbook draft table of contents

The original draft table of contents was developed for the EOSC Federation Handbook by its core writing team, who have been working together since March 2024 with the support of the EOSC Focus project.

1. Purpose

  • Goals and purpose of the EOSC Federation
  • Success criteria for the Federation

2. Governance and legal framework

  • Governance structure
    • EOSC Node Forum
  • Legal framework
  • Communication and external relations
  • Risk management

3. Operational structure and responsibilities

  • Introduction
  • Management and operational responsibilities
  • Nodes
    • Application process to become an EOSC Node
    • Operations
    • Responsibilities
    • Review of EOSC Nodes
    • Roles for EOSC Nodes
    • EOSC Node Members

4. Federation Platform

  • Core and Exchange Services (EU Node)
  • Federation Interoperability Framework
  • Technical operations
  • Compute and storage resources
  • Cybersecurity
  • Links to external entities
  • Training

5. Federation scientific resources

  • FAIR data repositories
  • Productivity tools
  • Scientific services
  • Services discovery
  • Training

6. Federation policies

  • Rules of Participation
  • Access Policy
  • Acceptable Usage Policy
  • Ethical, legal and societal issues
  • Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection Policy
  • Intellectual Property Policy
  • Code of Conduct

Core writing team

Editors

Andy Götz
EOSC Association

Mark Dietrich (co-editor)
EGI Foundation

Miguel Rey Mazón (co-editor)
TU Graz

Writers

Abdulrahman Azab
Sikt

Susanne Blumesberger
University of Vienna

Korbinian Bösl
University of Bergen

Sally Chambers
DARIAH-EU

Helen Clare
Jisc LBG

Oscar Corcho
UPM

Matthew Dovey
Jisc LBG

Annika Glauner
ETH Zurich

Petr Holub
BBMRI-ERIC

Emma Lazzeri
CNR

Josefine Nordling
CSC – IT Center for Science

Jana Pavlic-Zupanc
BBMRI-ERIC

Nanette Rissler-Pipka
Max Weber Foundation

Martino Romaniello
ESO

Davide Salomoni
INFN and ICSC Foundation

Diego Scardaci
EGI Foundation

Carlos Oscar Sorzano
Instruct-ERIC

York Sure-Vetter
NFDI

Jonathan Tedds
ELIXIR

Mark van de Sanden
Coöperatie SURF

Kannan Venkatesh
ICHEC

Alen Vodopijevec
CESSDA

Reviewers

Victoria Dominguez del Angel
Inria

Natalia Galica
NCN

Daniel Garijo
UPM

Eduardo González
UPM

Peter Maccallum
ELIXIR

Tanja Maier
GÉANT

Paolo Manghi
OpenAIRE

Jana Pavlic-Zupanc
BBMRI

Tommi Suominen
CSC

Eirini Xemantilotou
Instruct-ERIC

Handbook planning and events

2025

  • October 2025
    New draft integrating feedback from first wave of EOSC Candidate Nodes
  • March 2025
    New draft integrating feedback from Winter School and Tripartite
  • January 2025
    Full draft presented at EOSC Winter School

2024