France

France has a long tradition of open science, and this is being reflected in the country's enthusiastic participation in EOSC-related initiatives. After the publication of the national Open Science plan, which explicitly includes the participation in the EOSC, in summer 2018, the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR) has been putting in place a Coordination committee for services and e-infrastructures (CoSIN), with a special focus on the EOSC.

As part of this activity, a national working group has been created including the main French EOSC stakeholder organisations and the ministry to advance the coordination of EOSC related activities in France. One of the tasks of this group is to propose the mandated organisation for France in the newly established EOSC Association.

In parallel, a process of identifying the key e-infrastructures in the French computing landscape is ongoing. The goal is to determine national and regional computing and data storing facilities, which are the crucial elements of the computing and data treatment effort for research and higher education in France.

Le Collège EOSC-France (CEF)

Le Collège EOSC-France (CEF), which is a consortium of member organisations, is the national structure in France. It consists of delegates from research funding organisations, research performing organisations and service providers for research. Its main priorities are:

• Coordination of the French position within the EOSC;
• Animation of the French EOSC community;
• Proposing the French mandated member of the EOSC Association;
• Engaging stakeholders at national level into EOSC;
• Disseminating and promoting EOSC at national level;
• Coordinating EOSC activities at national level.

The CEF is set up under CoSIN (Comité Service et Infrastructure Numérique). CoSIN has a working group together with CoSO (Committee for Open Science) to coordinate common activities under supervision of the MESR. The mission of the CoSO is to define an Open Science policy, to ensure its development at the national and international level and to coordinate its implementation at the level of scientific institutions and communities. It coordinates, drives and supports changes towards open science, based on a clearly defined strategy.

Proposed by CEF, the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) was accepted as the mandated organisation for France in EOSC.

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