BPOS

This project prepares BPOS to become a candidate national EOSC Node by establishing the necessary governance, technical, and community foundations. Led by the National Centre for Information and Documentation (NACID), the initiative creates a coordination-centric model designed to lower participation barriers and reduce administrative burdens for research organizations. The resulting Project Charter will serve as the primary framework for integrating additional Bulgarian infrastructures into the EOSC ecosystem.

A specific focus of this preparatory work is aligning BPOS with EOSC standards ahead of a planned 2026 system upgrade, which will introduce services for dataset deposition and long-term preservation. Securing early compliance with the EOSC Federation ensures these upcoming capabilities are interoperable from the beginning.

To complete the application charter, NACID will evaluate the technical readiness of BPOS and map out its integration with core EOSC federating services, including eduGAIN authentication, catalog interoperability, and helpdesk mechanisms. The project roadmap also assesses monitoring and accounting functionalities while formally defining the governance structures, sustainability frameworks, and future contributions to the EOSC Academy.

This project strategically expands the EOSC Federation into South-Eastern Europe by systematically integrating Bulgarian research outputs. BPOS operates under a legal mandate as both a trusted national repository and an interconnectivity layer for institutional databases. Under this mandate, the National Centre for Information and Documentation requires all contributors to organize their content using defined standards, including persistent identifiers, structured metadata, controlled vocabularies, and clear licensing conditions.

These operational requirements ensure all data adheres to FAIR principles, making it fully prepared for indexing by international infrastructures like OpenAIRE and the EOSC Federation. Transitioning BPOS into an official EOSC Node formalizes this existing technical alignment, embedding federation capabilities directly into national practice and improving the overall efficiency of European and domestic research investments.

For individual researchers, integration improves the discoverability, accessibility, and reuse of publicly funded work across European catalogs. It provides increased international visibility, ensures the persistent identification of outputs and contributors, and grants direct access to the broader EOSC service network through federated authentication. Participating research organizations will similarly benefit from this centralized infrastructure and extended international reach.

Operated by NACID under the Ministry of Education and Science, BPOS receives continuous state funding that ensures long-term institutional stability. The platform guarantees the safe storage and accessibility of published scientific resources through strict, documented procedures, including formal preservation policies and disaster recovery plans.

Developing the EOSC Node Project Charter aligns these established practices with EOSC Federation requirements. This integration strengthens the national service while optimizing broader European research investments by making regional data available for reuse. The preparatory work also supports a planned system upgrade that will introduce comprehensive research data services. By proactively establishing governance, metadata profiles, persistent identifier strategies, and access rules, the project ensures the platform’s transition from handling publications to complex datasets will integrate seamlessly into the EOSC framework. Additionally, the core architecture is highly scalable, allowing new institutions to onboard without requiring structural modifications.

To maximize the impact of these results, NACID will engage with national stakeholders and share documentation, validated use cases, and governance models through EOSC channels. This creates a federation-ready framework designed to be reused by other countries with similar national repository contexts, extending the project’s practical value across Europe.