Five years ago today, on 23 June 2021, European Commissioners Mariya Gabriel and Thierry Breton, together with EOSC Association President Karel Luyben, launched the co-programmed European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Partnership at the European Research & Innovation Days.
That moment marked a decisive step for EOSC: a shared commitment between the European Commission, the EOSC Association, its growing community of Member and Observer organisations, and the Member States and Associated Countries to turn the vision of a web of FAIR data and services for science into a lasting European reality.
At the time, the ambition was clear. EOSC would enable researchers to find, create, share, and reuse digital knowledge in the service of innovation, higher research productivity, and more reproducible science. It would deepen Open Science practices in the new European Research Area, empowering Europe’s wider strategic digital agenda. Above all, it would help make FAIR data management, trusted reuse, and cross-border collaboration the norm.
Since then, the EOSC community has, together, made an impact equal to this ambition. What began as an aspirational policy vision has become a structured, collaborative effort connecting research-performing organisations, Research Infrastructures, e-Infrastructures, service providers, funders, policymakers, and scientific communities across Europe. Moreover, as EOSC becomes operational it grows increasingly central to the strategic research and innovation framework for European digital sovereignty, security, and leadership in artificial intelligence.
Today’s anniversary is therefore not only an opportunity to look back, but also to look ahead. As Horizon Europe enters its final phase, the next challenge is to ensure that EOSC is sustained, strengthened and fully embedded beyond 2027. The need that motivated the Partnership in 2021 has only grown: more than ever, researchers need trusted environments to share, combine, and reuse data, tools, and services across borders and disciplines, while Europe requires a robust research data ecosystem to support innovation, competitiveness, and public trust in science.
Today, EOSC-A invites the EOSC community to celebrate five years of fruitful collaboration under the co-programmed Partnership. We thank all those who have helped turn an ambitious vision into tangible progress, and we look forward to working together to secure EOSC’s place as a cornerstone of European research and innovation in the post-Horizon Europe era.
EOSC and the EOSC Federation have been called out on several occasions in 2025 as a key structural element for the advancement of European competitiveness in research and innovation, including:
- In the European Council’s recommendations on the ERA Policy Agenda, Priority Area 1: Deepening a truly functioning internal market for knowledge;
- In the September 2025 European Strategy on Research and Technology Infrastructures, where the EC pledges to develop actions in support of “aligning and coordinating investments across Europe for trusted and secure storage, processing and sharing of critical data including through EOSC”; and
- In the Union’s 2025 AI Continent Action Plan and subsequent digital strategies for AI in Science, Apply AI, and the Data Union, where EOSC, as “Europe’s Data Space for research and innovation, is gathering vast amounts of high-quality research data from research institutes to make them available for innovative applications”.
