Spain

European Commission

Commission Representation in Spain

EOSC-A Mandated Organisation

CSIC - Spanish National Research Council

EOSC Steering Board representatives

Inmaculada Figueroa, Deputy Director General for Internationalization of Science and Innovation. Ministry of Science and Innovation

The National Government has been working on designing and implementing its open science policy. With respect to Open Data and research data preservation, the Spanish Strategy of Science, Technology and Innovation EECTI 2021-2027 drives the development of repositories, open access to the research publications and fosters the Spanish contribution to the European Open Science Cloud. At national level, the State Plan of Scientific and Technical Research 2021-2023 includes strategies to promote open science, open access and strengthen research infrastructures and the inclusion of the Open Science paradigm in the funding, evaluation and communication of the scientific production.  Additionally, the Spanish Roadmap for the European Research Area Development Strategy 2020-2024 in its objective 2.1 states the need of accelerating the deployment of the European open science cloud to boost the innovation on AI and supports the contribution of national research infrastructures to EOSC.

Spain does not have a national EOSC initiative yet. The Spanish Network for e-Science (REEC), funded by the ministerial act CIN/658/2020, of July the 13th, 2020 is in progress to set up the interaction among the stakeholders. The coordinator of the REEC (Ignacio Blanquer) is also a member of the board of directors of the EOSC-A.

The major stakeholders involved in its construction are represented, on one hand by Research Performing Organizations (RPO) with the main participation of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), along with a large number of universities, the Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology and several centres participating in ESFRIs (such as Instruct, ELIXIR, EMSO, SKA and LIFEWATCH-ERIC). On the other hand, Service Providers, such as the Spanish NREN, the centres of the Spanish Network for Supercomputing and the IBERGRID federation contribute with network, computing and storage resources.

The engagement of Spanish institutions in EOSC is high, including 15 Members and 15 Observers of the EOSC-A.  The REEC includes the Mandated Organisation, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) representing Research Performing Organisations as well as several Members that are part of the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES) as Service Providers.

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Policies

The Spanish Strategy of Science, Technology and Innovation 2013-2020 defines the policy for Open Access to research data subsidized with public resources. The published scientific journals funded by the State Plan of Scientific and Technical Research 2017-2020 will be deposited in repositories.

Along with the strategies and policies for Open Science defied in the Spanish Strategy of Science, Technology and Innovation EECTI 2021-2027 and the State Plan of Scientific and Technical Research 2021-2023, the Spanish Foundation of Science and Technology (FECYT) has a working group to monitor to what extent Spanish repositories comply with Science Law open access clause, in compliance with the provisions of Article 37 of Law 14/2011, June 1, on Science, Technology and Innovation and the recommendations linked to the European agenda on open access and open science.

Best practices

Spain is very active in the management of the whole data life cycle in different scientific disciplines. A key instrument are the Unique Science and Technology Infrastructures (ICTS) and in international collaborations related to the sharing of data. Relevant examples are:

  • The Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO): Research public body ascribed to the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities with core budged allocated by the Government. The maintenance of the databases is connected to other in EU. IEO is partner of SeaDataNet (SND) , a distributed Marine Data Infrastructure for the management of large and diverse sets of data deriving from in situ of the seas and oceans. Data are also been incorporated to long-term marine data initiatives like EMODnet, FixO3 or PSMSL among others. SDN gives access to data and useful information to researchers, individuals, companies, important European initiatives such as EuroFleets (New operational steps towards an alliance of European research fleets) and international initiatives such as POGO (Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans).
  • Spanish National Bio-Informatics Institute (INB) is one of the 19 nodes distributed across 13 institutions of ELIXIR. INB is responsible in ELIXIR for co-managing the European Genome-Phenome Archive, besides other health related platforms that could contribute to EOSC, such as the Spanish Clinical Trials Research Network (SCREN), the Spanish Medical Innovation Platform (ITEMAS) and Spanish Biobank Network (Red Biobancos) and the Proteomics, Genomics and Cellular Lines Platform (PRB3).
  • INSTRUCT is an ESFRI focused on structural biology. Spain contributes to INSTRUCT with the “Instruct Image Processing Center (I2PC)” in the Spanish Centre of Biotechnology CNB-CSIC.
  • Lifewatch-ERIC, Infrastructure Consortium providing e-Science research facilities to scientists seeking to increase our knowledge and deepen our understanding of Biodiversity organisation and Ecosystem functions and services in order to support civil society in addressing key planetary challenges.

In the horizontal dimension FECYT published an Open Science report on good practices for the management of research data (December 2012), aiming to assist in the standardization of research data management in repositories to facilitate its preservation, access and distribution, as well as an Open Access dissemination on recommendations for the implementation of the Article 37 of the Spanish Science, Technology and Innovation Act (October 2014). By mandate of the Secretary General of Research, FECYT is working on the definition of a National Strategy on Open Science, involving the main stakeholders comprising funding agency, career evaluation agencies, Universities and research institutions and data and repository service providers.

At institutional level, most organizations have fostered the deposit of research data and assets in institutional repositories, linked to the national network of libraries. A representative example is the CSIC Open Access Mandate entered in April 2019 requesting CSIC researchers to deposit and make their data associated with publications FAIR in the institutional Open Science repository, DIGITAL.CSIC.

EOSC Association Members and Observers

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

Mandated organisation

The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is a State Agency for scientific research and technological development, with distinct legal personali... Read more

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Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)

Member

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) has been Spain’s national supercomputing facility since 2005.... Read more

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BASQUE CENTER FOR APPLIED MATHEMATICS

Observer

BCAM is a world-class interdisciplinary Research Centre in the field of Applied Mathematics that was founded in 2008, with a focus on interdiscipli... Read more

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Centro de Investigación Ecológica y Aplicaciones Forestales

Member

CREAF is a public research and innovation center in terrestrial ecology, territorial analysis and environmental impact, which strives for excellenc... Read more

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Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT)

Member

CIEMAT is a public research body assigned to the Ministry of Science and Innovation focusing on energy, environment and related technologies.... Read more

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Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Españolas

Observer

Crue Universidades Españolas is a not-for-profit association, created in 1994, and constituted by 76 Spanish universities, 50 public and 26 private... Read more

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Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya

Observer

The CSUC is a consortium of all the public universities of Catalonia, three privately-owned universities and the Government of Catalonia.... Read more

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Consorcio para el Diseño, la construcción, el equipamiento y la explotación del Centro de Láseres Pulsados Ulstracortos Ultraint (CLPU)

Observer

The Spanish Center for Pulsed Lasers was established in December 2007 as a Consortium, and as part of the implementation of the Spanish Roadmap for... Read more

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Consorcio para la Construcción, Equipamiento y Explotación del Laboratorio de Luz de Sincrotrón

Member

The ALBA Synchrotron is a Research Infrastructure located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, (Barcelona).... Read more

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Entidad pública empresarial Red.es

Member

Red.es is the Spanish Government Agency in charge of promoting digital transformation.... Read more

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Fundacio Centre de Regulacio Genomica (Centre for Genomic Regulation)

Observer

CRG is a multidisciplinary research centre in biomedicine, focused on understanding the complexity of life from the genome to the cell to a whole o... Read more

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Fundación Centro de Supercomputación de Castilla y León (SCAYLE)

Observer

SCAYLE is a non-profit entity established in 2009 by the regional goverment of Castilla y León to promote the use of ICT services in the region, in... Read more

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Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología Organisation (FECYT)

Member

FECYT is a public foundation under the Ministry of Science and Innovation in Spain.... Read more

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Fundación para la investigación biomédica del hospital universitario La Paz

Member

IdiPAZ institute concentrates on the clinical, translational and experimental research of the La Paz University Hospital, the flagship and best-val... Read more

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Fundación Pública Andaluza para la Gestión de la Investigación en Salud de Sevilla - Institute of Biomedicine of Seville

Observer

FISEVI is a non-profit organisation whose main objective is the management of health research in hospitals and public research centres in the provi... Read more

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