In this interview, Rasmus Kvaal Wardemann, Senior Adviser for Research Data and Infrastructure at the Research Council of Norway, reflects on the importance and future of EOSC and explains how its implementation is arranged in Norway.
With a background in Science and Technology Studies and a PhD in FAIR principles, Rasmus Kvaal Wardemann is well positioned to support the coordination of EOSC-related activities in Norway.
Conducted by Anu Märkälä and Sara Garavelli (CSC – IT Center for Science), this interview is part of the 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 the EOSC Association?
The role of Mandated Organisation has been assigned to us by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. Our task is to keep all relevant Norwegian actors engaged with EOSC and identify benefits that we can bring back to our country and researchers. It is a coordination activity, so we focus on staying informed about EOSC developments and disseminating that information at the national level.
What factors led your organisation to join EOSC-A?
Norway prides itself in providing a supportive research environment and we get a lot out of our involvement in the European Research Area (ERA) despite not being a part of the European Union. Our motivation is to stay in ERA and take part in that community. The Research Council of Norway is the biggest research funder in the country. This is why we have a particular responsibility in keeping all actors of the Norwegian research community involved in EOSC and making sure that the initiative brings value to researchers.
What motivated you to become a member of the EOSC Association?
When it comes to the EOSC Association membership, our motivation lies in gaining access to information and being part of key dialogues. EOSC Association membership is a very important channel for us to maintain and represent the interests of the Norwegian research community. It is not only about staying informed about EOSC developments but also about contributing to these developments from our perspective.
Norway is one of the countries where the Mandated Organisation has a dual role, also representing the country in the EOSC Steering Board. How do you manage this?
The Research Council works closely with the Ministry, and my colleague Olja Toljagic works with Ola Berge from the Ministry of Education and Research in the EOSC Steering Board. Information flows smoothly between the Council and the Ministry, and we collaborate well on the EOSC initiative. One of the benefits of the Norwegian research landscape is that it is not very fragmented, which makes coordination easier.
Who are the key actors in Norway relative to EOSC?
In addition to the Research Council of Norway and the Ministry of Education and Research, I would like to point out the four biggest universities in Norway that are also part of the EOSC Association: University of Oslo, University of Bergen, The Arctic University of Norway and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). I would also like to mention the national research service provider Sikt, and the NORCE research centre. ELIXIR and other data infrastructures that we fund, including the national computing and storage provider Sigma2, are also very important actors nationally and internationally.
How do you coordinate EOSC at the national level?
We have introduced four tools to support EOSC uptake and engagement in Norway. One of them is funding. We strategically use our national funding to empower the research infrastructures (RI) at the heart of Open Science. We also follow the developments in the European research landscape and contribute to key documents such as for example the EOSC Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). Currently, we are updating our national RI roadmap, keeping an eye on ESFRI and the European landscape beyond that. The Research Council also financially supports Norwegian organisations that want to join the EOSC Association as members or observers. Through continuous open call, organisations can apply for funding to cover the annual membership fee in the EOSC Association.
Another tool we have is policy. We use policies to promote Open Science, such as requiring a data management plan and encouraging the sharing of research data.
The third tool is dialogue. It is important to ensure that everyone in the research community in Norway is informed about the possibilities that lie in collaboration with international actors who take part, for example, in EOSC-related activities.
We also have a dedicated EOSC Forum to support stakeholder engagement. We organise online gatherings for all actors interested in EOSC, and we also have a Microsoft Teams channel for communication. The Forum is open to anyone in Norway.
What is the most important policy for Open Science in your country?
It is very difficult to choose just one policy because Open Science is such a broad and complex topic and national policies contribute to it in many ways. As I mentioned earlier, we have a policy to fund research infrastructures, which is essential, but we also have an open data policy that requires researchers who get funding from us to share their research data. At a strategic level, the ERA policy agenda plays a key role in all of this.
Are there any EOSC-specific policies in Norway?
No, there are no EOSC-specific policies in place, but there is a strong commitment throughout our research system, starting from the state level, to be part of and aligned with EOSC. We at the Research Council of Norway take that signal very seriously and participate in EOSC as actively as we can.
What do you think are the main strengths of Norway in developing EOSC?
One of the main advantages is that we have a single research council instead of a fragmented research community. This means that research activities are relatively centralised. The Research Council has a broad spectrum of initiatives in their portfolio and has a good understanding of relevant international initiatives. This helps with EOSC coordination and its contextualisation within the broader Norwegian research landscape. Also, Norway is involved in many Nordic collaborations, that can help strengthen EOSC’s impact at the national level.
What is your take on the awareness and uptake of EOSC in Norway?
We definitively see interest in EOSC in Norway. The more institutions and actors collaborate internationally, especially within the European context, the more intrinsic motivation they have. Their interest in EOSC seems to correlate with how much they participate in international activities in general.
Do you plan to establish a Norwegian EOSC Node?
We do not have an immediate plan to establish a national node, but we do not exclude that possibility in the future. We are closely observing the first wave of 14 organisations engaged in the Build-up Group to better understand what it means to build and operate a national node both in terms of costs and added value for the country. Also, even though we are not formally a part of a national or a thematic node, many actors in the Norwegian research community are going to gain valuable experience through their affiliations with the 14 organisations. We look forward to gaining insights from that. They can inform our further decisions and strategies.
What are your thoughts on areas of possible improvement in the development of EOSC in Norway?
We see that there is a lot of interest in EOSC. Whenever I am at a conference or people visit us at the Council, we always get questions about EOSC. What should we do? How can we participate? Sometimes, we find it hard to answer these questions because there is so much happening with EOSC. Learning from the EOSC Federation build-up phase and the experiences of the 14 organisations will tell us much and help us understand how EOSC can concretely benefit the actors in the Norwegian research space. I think the clearer EOSC becomes for us, our researchers and research infrastructures, the better we can participate in a meaningful way.
Have you encountered any challenges, obstacles or barriers in the development of EOSC in your country?
EOSC is very complex, with many moving parts. There is a lot happening and even though we are in a very good position to follow all of that, it is difficult to orient ourselves and guide our researchers here in Norway. Speaking in more concrete terms, the costs and benefits of EOSC are still unclear.
Could you please highlight some examples, case studies or good practices that showcase the impact of EOSC in Norway?
We have several examples. CESSDA ERIC is a very successful data infrastructure for social sciences and humanities and is involved in many INFRAEOSC projects. They are an important player in Norway and Europe as well. We are also involved in EuroHPC and have invested in the LUMI infrastructure. We are very happy to benefit from that and the collaboration with Sigma2.
In addition, the Norwegian contribution to the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) is very successful and applauded. The Norwegians are very happy with the developments and rightfully proud of it. For example, NOR-CAM, part of CoARA, is essentially an assessment tool for the evaluation of researchers and their academic careers, that accounts for other things than just publications in journals. It attributes value to activities such as teaching, student supervision, data sharing, and Open Science practices. We think that this is an important step toward making EOSC and Open Science more tangible.
Finally, I want to pinpoint that the Norwegian engagement with the Research Data Alliance (RDA) is an important channel that helps us to stay connected with the global community beyond Europe. Within Europe, we are also part of Science Europe and we find a lot of value in that community as well.
Would you like to highlight anything that we have not discussed?
We find it important that EOSC remains a bottom-up initiative which gives value to researchers, research performing organisations, and research infrastructures. If EOSC is to be a sustainable initiative providing added value, it must focus on delivering value for researchers. We hope that EOSC post-2027 will be geared toward this goal.
About the Research Council of Norway
The Research Council works to promote renewal and innovation in the public sector, for the industry and the research organisations. The organisation offers a variety of funding instruments for research-based innovation and knowledge-building.
