The EOSC Association (EOSC-A) held a second General Assembly (GA) for its Members and Observers in August 2021. This was a written GA in line with Article 3.6 on ‘Written Procedure’ of the EOSC-A Statutes, conducted via an online webform. The three items on the agenda required a response by 31 August 2021:
- Item 01 (Decision): Admittance of New Members and Observers
- Item 02 (Decision): Establishment of five Advisory Groups and Embedded 13 Task Forces
- Item 03 (Information): Date for General Assembly #3 on 10.12.2021
Only the Delegates of Members of EOSC-A may vote in the GA, while the Representatives of Observers may take part in the GA but not vote . At the time of voting, EOSC-A had a potential 136 voting Members (consisting of 21 Mandated Member Organisations and 115 Member Organisations). For the GA to validly deliberate, at least half of the Members of EOSC-A needed to be present or represented. We received 87 valid responses from our Members and thus exceeded the quorum of 68 votes for the results of the GA to be considered valid.
Item 01 involved a decision to admit new Members and Observers. The Board of EOSC-A checked all new applications since the first GA on 17 December 2021 and proposed a list of provisionally accepted new Members and Observers that met the requirements in the Statutes. The GA unanimously accepted all proposed new Members and Observers: Yes = 87 | No = 0 | Abstain = 0. The Board welcomes the new Members and Observers to EOSC-A which will soon add to the list on the membership webpage of EOSC-A.
Item 02 involved a decision to establish five Advisory Groups (AGs) : Implementation of EOSC; Technical Challenges on EOSC; Metadata and Data Quality; Research Careers and Curricula; Sustaining EOSC. Each AG consists of multiple TFs (13 in total) which focus on developing crucial aspects of EOSC in line with the EOSC Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). The AGs and TFs were proposed by the Board after a consultation with the community and preliminary work with members of the community resulted in draft charters to guide the work of the TFs. The GA overwhelmingly accepted the establishment of the AGs with embedded TFs: Yes = 86 | No = 0 | Abstain = 1. The TFs have been opened to applications for membership by the community and are expected to be established and have their kick-off meetings by start October 2021.
Item 03 lastly requested the Members and Observers to take note of the date of the next GA. This third GA will be an online meeting on 10 December 2021. The invitation, logistics, agenda, and related papers for the GA will be sent to all Members and Observers in advance of the meeting. The Board thanks the Members and Observers for taking part in the second GA and looks forward to welcoming all the Delegates and Representatives to the third GA.
