EOSC is creating a Web of FAIR Digital Objects and Related Services for Science. The FAIR principles and metadata standards act as guidelines for interoperability and facilitate maximum sharing and exploitation of research by the academic, private and public sector.
The Gaia-X initiative aims at creating a proposal for the next generation of a European data infrastructure as a secure, federated system that meets the highest standards of digital sovereignty while promoting innovation. Gaia-X has a strong focus on enabling data sharing in different European business sectors.
The EOSC Association and the Gaia-X Association have held 2 meetings, in March and July 2021, during which the associations explored potential synergies and possible means of working together. There are similarities in the high-level architectures of EOSC and Gaia-X and they have compatible notions of data spaces and ecosystems.
EGI Foundation has produced a paper exploring the Governance, Architectures and Business Models for Data and Cloud Federation that examines EOSC and Gaia-X.
The assessment is that EOSC and Gaia-X have compatible approaches with many different potential touching points. Gaia-X could be a valuable partner for EOSC in the activities linked to the gradual expansion of EOSC to the public and private sectors foreseen to start from 2023 onwards.
The associations have agreed to come together after the summer when the EOSC Task Forces are in place to elaborate on the areas of future cooperation.
