One more step towards the European Open Science Cloud

The EOSC will be a federation of existing and planned research data infrastructures. It will essentially comprise a federating core and a variety of federated research data infrastructures committed to providing services as part of the EOSC. The groundwork for this federated EOSC architecture was laid by several projects funded under Horizon Work Programme 2016-2017, which aim at federating data infrastructures at the European level and offering shared services (e.g. European Grid Infrastructure (EGI), European Data Infrastructure (EUDAT) etc.)

The roll out of the EOSC will follow a two-stage approach:

1. Development of shared resources as part of the federating core: In the initial phase, Horizon 2020 projects, especially the EOSC-hub, will provide an access channel complementing the access mechanisms in use at different data infrastructures.
   
2. Connection of a large number of research data infrastructures: The hub would relay the resources and the services of data infrastructures funded at EU, national and regional level. Service and resources might be both generic and thematic-specific.
   

Membership in the federation would be voluntary and the governance structure would include Member State Ministries, stakeholders and scientists.

Should you be interested in learning more about this initiative, please consult the Commission Implementation Roadmap for the European Science Cloud here.