Slovenia is one of the smallest countries in Europe, and yet it is on a par with, if not ahead of, larger EU Member States in terms of progress towards establishing Open Science as the new normal.
In this interview, EOSC-A Mandated Organisation ARNES and the Slovenian Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, represented respectively by Marko Bonač and Marko Drobjnak, and Peter Sterle, provide an overview of the current developments in the country and describe all efforts underway to provide researchers with the tools they need to reap all benefits from Open Science.
Conducted by Miguel Rey Mazón (TU Graz) and Isabel Caetano (EOSC-A), this interview is part of a series coordinated by the EOSC Focus project, in which we highlight the role of EOSC Association Mandated Organisations, and showcase their activities aimed at the implementation of EOSC.
What is the role of your organisation in Slovenia?
As Slovenia’s National Research and Education Network (NREN), the Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (ARNES) has a mission to optimise the work of the scientific research community by providing infrastructure solutions, such as optical backbone infrastructure for high performance computing (HPC), or co-location possibilities for research infrastructures in data centres, and cloud services. The responsibilities for Open Science in the country are split between ARNES and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation. We both have a representative on the EOSC Steering Board (EOSC SB). Currently, these are Marko Drobnjak and Peter Sterle from the Ministry, and Marko Bonač, director of ARNES – Slovenia’s Mandated Organisation for EOSC-A.
What are your main motivations for being a member of EOSC-A?
We strive to bring fresh perspectives, always putting researchers at the forefront. This should be the foundation of any solution, whether at the EU or national level. We must keep optimising researchers’ work processes and enabling a competitive working environment for all. ARNES already offers excellent infrastructure solutions to create a cutting-edge research environment for our researchers.
What is your strategic plan for the coming years and how does it align with EOSC?
ARNES works with the Slovenian Open Science Community (SSOZ) to improve our strategic alignment with EOSC, which in our opinion represents the future of science and research infrastructures. The Slovenian Open Science community brings together all relevant organisations in Slovenia and is the bridge between researchers and decision makers. Since infrastructure is ARNES’ core business, we try to stay at the forefront in this area. We still need to improve our infrastructure to establish a national EOSC Node, but we are not too far from achieving it.
EOSC embodies the idea of Open Science (OS): the digitisation of science to create a web of open scientific data and services that enable sharing across countries and disciplines. As the main organisation responsible for digital research infrastructures in Slovenia, ARNES supports repositories for open research data across disciplines, ensuring alignment with European scientific data infrastructures now emerging as EOSC Nodes under the EOSC Federation.
ARNES will maintain its role as the gateway for the Slovenian scientific community to Europe and the world. We are establishing the necessary processes to achieve this, and EOSC is our main strategic priority in the near future. At the same time, we see the Slovenian Open Science community as a pillar within the research community, playing a fundamental role in shaping the future infrastructure ecosystem.
We organise events to promote OS and contribute to the adoption of OS principles in all research activities. ARNES supports coordinate engagement activities, such as the Knowledge Network Conference, which features the Open Science Day organised by the SSOZ and Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation. The Slovenian National Tripartite Event and the Supercomputing Day are part of this conference. Attended by the research community and decisions-makers from Slovenia and the EU, the main purpose of the event is networking, sharing experiences in OS, and discussing how to transfer OS activities from the EU level to Slovenia.
One of the key mechanisms launched in recent years is the expert body of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation responsible for reviewing the implementation of the Action Plan for Open Science and ensuring its impact in the country. To support this, we are creating working groups that will help Slovenia to be more connected to EOSC. This takes time since we need to assemble the right people.
Another initiative is the Open Science Days, which were this year held in Ljubljana on 03-04 December. In this edition we introduced the concept of EOSC Nodes to the Slovenian community, with talks about infrastructures, intellectual property, OS, the publishing platform Open Research Europe, and open access policies in Slovenia and Europe.
We have also developed the national portal Open Science Slovenia. All Slovenian public research organisations are part of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). We are also actively involved in several infrastructures on the ESFRI Roadmap, and in EuroHPC.
How would you describe the perception of the EOSC Federation within the Slovenian community?
We have not received direct feedback on the latest developments regarding EOSC. For the Slovenian community, a clear understanding of what EOSC is has been missing as there have been no concrete activities directly benefiting Slovenian researchers. Up until 2024, EOSC was largely perceived as a set of ideas with limiting impact on daily scientific work. It was really hard to sell it to the community. This is changing with the build-up phase of the EOSC Federation and the introduction of the concept of EOSC Nodes, which can bring clear benefits. This will help us to engage the community more productively and increase their awareness.
What specific resources and policies has Slovenia put in place to implement Open Science?
The Scientific Research and Innovation Strategy 2030 adopted by the Slovenian Parliament is the basis of research activities in Slovenia, and sets out an innovation strategy, which calls for research to be open by default. Building up on this, the Slovenian government signed the Scientific Research and Innovation Act, which requires all science and research results (co-)financed with national funds to be open and published according to the FAIR principles—as open as possible and as closed as necessary. The government has allocated €16 million for the implementation of the Strategy between 2023-2030, and has signed an accompanying decree to specify how OS principles have to be applied in research. The funding will be used to improve competences in OS by employing people to work in this area, rather than investing in infrastructures.
In your view, what should be the main priorities of EOSC-A and Open Science? How should EU policies incorporate them in the new framework programme that starts in 2027?
On the political level, Slovenia supports the principles of OS and continued funding of related activities under FP10. We actively participate in discussions about how funding should be allocated, including the type of partnership. In our opinion, Open Research Europe should be established as the European standard for scientific communication.
How does Slovenia contribute in-kind to the overall advancement of (open) science?
In-kind contributions depend on individual infrastructures and processes established on the national level. Slovenia has the possibility to contribute in-kind to data sharing and preservation thanks to a strong national data and supercomputing infrastructure. For example, the substantial progress of the Slovenian superconducting infrastructure in the past two years has allowed us to contribute to many projects, including the new European Digital Infrastructure Consortia (EDICs) initiated by Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT), and in particular the Alliance for Language Technologies EDIC (ALT-EDIC).
Which other players or organisations relevant for Open Science would you like to mention?
Involvement in EOSC-A had a slow start in Slovenia, in part because of the need to find the right people. We are now building teams at all relevant organisations, creating so-called Centres for Knowledge for capacity building clustered around university libraries, including the Ljubljana Central Technical Library, in cooperation with the University of Ljubljana and the libraries of the Universities of Maribor, Primovska, and Algorica. The teams formed here will be key in enabling our participation in the future development of EOSC in Slovenia.
We have secured funding for the processes and important elements for the infrastructure are in place, but there is still room for improvement, since much of the processes and knowledge have yet to be built. Another area of improvement is increasing user engagement to promote good practises and EOSC-related services. The combination of expanding working groups and an excellent infrastructure supported by the Ministry lets us see a bright future for EOSC in Slovenia.
A further example of what we are doing is the project SPOZNAJ, led by the Central Technical University Library. SPOZNAJ aims to integrate OS principles into research practices. This will have the biggest impact on scientific communities by creating an Open Science community around data centres and repositories. SPOZNAJ is also building capacity within our scientific community so that advanced infrastructures can be used efficiently. Other examples include the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) action plan, or the development of infrastructures like the Supercomputer Vega, and the Supercomputer Communities League.
Our biggest achievement has been the establishment of the Slovenian Open Science Community. This important milestone demonstrates what we aim for and what we can achieve. We want the community to become a reference point for the Slovenian government on topics related to Open Science.
What would you name as the main obstacles to implementing Open Science in Slovenia?
The largest barrier for us is the lack of awareness. The scientific community does not always recognise the benefits of Open Science. We hope to change this by improving funding opportunities, updating policies, and bringing advances from the international scientific landscape to the country. It is critical for us to follow the progress of Open Science and take part in ongoing initiatives. The challenge here is to establish the processes and teams able to build capacity and raise awareness. In this regard, Slovenia is like other small countries because there is either not enough people around, or there is not enough people with the desired skills.
What would you like to say about the future development of EOSC?
We are very interested in the discussion about the future governance model for EOSC. We definitely favour a partnership model where all three parties, the EU Member States and Associated Countries, the European Commission and the scientific community, are involved in the governance and in the coordination of all processes. The EOSC Federation should be supported by combined funding from the European Commission, EU Member States and Associated Countries, and possibly other sources, to develop common European infrastructures and processes that can realise the vision of an “Internet of open research data” in Europe, with appropriate coordination and capacity building capabilities.
About Academic and Research Network of Slovenia
The Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (ARNES) is a public institute that provides network and other services to research, educational and cultural organizations, and enables them to establish connections and cooperation with each other and with related organizations abroad.
About Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation of Slovenia
The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation focuses on the quality development of higher education, the transfer of knowledge into practice for the development of society as a whole, and the creation of a stimulating environment for research and innovation. Our goal is for Slovenia to become a country of knowledge, science and innovation and to be recognised as such around the world.
About Marko Drobjnak
Marko Drobnjak is an open science expert at the Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (ARNES). He completed his PhD at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, specializing in language and law, with a focus on the role of speech perception in the evaluation of witness testimony. Before joining ARNES, he was a junior researcher at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, Ljubljana, and a Fulbright researcher at UC Berkeley. As a researcher at the Institute of Criminology, he also concentrated on the legal, ethical, and technological aspects of processing textual and speech data for scientific, research, and industry purposes. He is currently involved in the experimental and statistical aspects of the LASAR project (Linguistic Accessibility of Social Assistance Rights in Slovenia) at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana.
About Peter Sterle
Peter Sterle is responsible for the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in Slovenia at the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Innovation (MVZI) and he is member of the EOSC Steering Board. His areas of work at the Ministry include Open Science, Research Infrastructures and Intellectual Rights.
Peter Sterle holds various institutional positions, including:
- Member of Horizon Europe Programme Committee-Configuration Research Infrastructures,
- Member of group of Signatories of the Declaration ‘Towards access to at least 1 million sequenced genomes in the European Union by 2022,
- Member of Committee for the implementation of the regulation on the community legal framework for a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC),
- Member of the EuroHPC JU Governing Board,
- Member of the Board of Directors of the Jožef Stefan Institute.
In the past, he has also been active in the field Internet governance, and he was, among others, the representative of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in the Governmental Advisory Committee to ICANN.
About Marko Bonač
Marko Bonač is the Director of ARNES.
