FE-EOSC.IE

Running for 12 months from February 2026, the project will deliver the full specification of EOSC Ireland, covering its architecture, minimum viable product, governance model, and a sustainable funding framework, with implementation planned for 2027.

This proposal (Enrolling EOSC Ireland) complements and amplifies the national EOSC.IE project by providing dedicated resources specifically to prepare for formal enrolment into the EOSC Federation. It has three specific objectives.

Formalise the Project Charter. Support the creation of a ratified Node Charter defining the legal statutes, operational rules, and financial commitments of the Node.

Ensure Federation Alignment. Develop EOSC Ireland in step with the wider EU EOSC landscape, drawing on findings from the EOSC Federation build-up group and the EOSC Federation Handbook. By integrating lessons from early-wave Nodes, EOSC Ireland will incorporate mandatory and recommended service components, including EOSC Federation AAI compliance, federated catalogues, helpdesk, service monitoring, and FitSM-based service management, securing a level of interoperability and European integration that national pilot efforts alone could not achieve.

Align with the EOSC Federation MoU. Ensure that the operational and governance model of EOSC Ireland is fully compatible with that of the EOSC Federation.

The EOSC.IE project directly supports the European Data Strategy by consolidating Ireland’s key digital assets (Asiera, ICHEC, and Irish ESFRI Nodes) into a unified National EOSC Node. This convergence tackles the fragmentation of the European research landscape head-on, ensuring that national investments in connectivity and compute are jointly leveraged to support emerging Thematic Nodes such as LS Connect. By acting as the horizontal integration layer for these verticals, the project explicitly prevents the creation of parallel infrastructures and avoids redundancy in service delivery.

Crucially, EOSC Ireland addresses a “soft infrastructure” gap that traditional national funding tends to overlook. While capital-heavy technical builds are typically well supported, the complex architectural and governance alignment required to federate ESFRI and EuroHPC assets is not. This project provides exactly those resources, ensuring Ireland is ready for the 2027 onboarding waves.

On FAIRness, EOSC Ireland adopts the service provisioning model demonstrated by leading Nodes such as CSC Finland, empowering national ESFRI Research Infrastructures to focus on domain-specific stewardship while the Node ensures the technical layer is compliant by design. Resources will be findable through strict adherence to Federation Build-up Group guidelines for federated catalogues, making national assets discoverable via the EOSC Portal. They will be accessible through implementation of the EOSC Federation AAI framework, ensuring seamless, policy-compliant access for international researchers. Interoperability is embedded directly into the Node’s statutes, drawing on outputs from Beyond, FAIR-IMPACT, and FAIRCORE4EOSC. Reusability is boosted by upgrading national services (helpdesk, monitoring) to Federation standards and adopting specific Task Force recommendations, ensuring Irish data is prepared for robust downstream reuse.

Based on input from other candidate Nodes during the federation build-up, a production service for EOSC Ireland is estimated to have a total cost of ownership of roughly 9 to 10 million euros over five years, as outlined in the EOSC.IE project proposal. The project will deliver a sustainable financial model built on two primary contributions: central government funding and co-funding from participating organisations and users.

Government support is already strong. The rapid turnaround from proposal submission to funding award, with full awareness of the expected long-term costs, demonstrates clear and committed backing from the relevant government departments.

Engagement from the research community is equally encouraging. Fifteen individuals from eleven organisations directly contributed to developing the proposal, and more than thirty individuals, ranging from research centre directors to IT managers, provided feedback through dedicated workshops.