The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) arises from the European Commission’s stated intention to increase the circulation and exploitation of knowledge by promoting open access to the data resulting from publically funded research under Horizon 2020.

Ensuring that research resources such as data, software and services can be rendered and maintained Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable (FAIR) is FAIRsFAIR’s contribution to the EOSC. As such, alignment and cooperation with existing organisations, long-term projects, and  other initiatives which support building the EOSC is fundamental to our success.

Specifically, we work with institutional partners, the ESFRI research clusters, and related initiatives to document and propagate FAIR policy and practice. This may involve synthesising lessons learned in one domain and applying them to another, developing educational resources, and supporting the adoption of standardisation tools. 

The governance bodies of FAIRsFAIR – its General Assembly, Executive Committee and Project Coordination Office – are assisted by a pan-project Synchronisation Force which seeks to maximise cost efficiencies and eliminate duplication of effort. In practice, the Synchronisation Force liaises with the Expert Group of FAIR Champions (ECFG), the ESFRI research clusters, and the thematic and regional "5B" projects.

 


EOSC Working Group on FAIR

Five EOSC Working Groups were established by the EOSC Executive Board: FAIR, Landscape, Rules of Participation, Architecture and Sustainability. The Working Group on FAIR is charged with implementing FAIR data principles by defining the associated requirements for the development of EOSC services in order to foster cross-disciplinary interoperability.

During the EOSC Executive Board (EB) meeting on 24 May 2019 FAIRsFAIR proposed an approach to synchronising EOSC-related projects and the EOSC Working Groups. The Executive Board members supported the strategy and suggested that the FAIRsFAIR approach could serve as an example for all EOSC-related projects to ensure convergence of planning and positioning.

In the framework of a Collaboration Agreement between FAIRsFAIR and EOSCSecretariat, the Synchronisation Force provides appropriate input to the Executive Board Working Groups. Representatives from the Working Groups, the EGFC, and the ESFRI reseach clusters are invited to participate in strategic workshops. 


ESFRI Clusters

The five members of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures provide a thematic gathering point for the activities required to make the EOSC a reality.  Each representing a different discipline, these clusters have strong links with research communities and projects, manage significant data volumes, and operate discipline-specific data analytics tools.

ENVRI-FAIR

Panosc

ESCAPE

SSHOC

EOSC-Life

Environment

Photon and Neutron

Sciences

Astronomy &

Particle Physics

Social Sciences and

Humanities

Biological & Medical



The purpose of the ESFRI clusters is to facilitate access to research data for incorporation into EOSC by developing shared data management methodologies, new services, and technical solutions in collaboration with European infrastructures and other EOSC-related projects.

FAIRsFAIR engages with each cluster to provide support and practical guidance on making their data FAIR compliant, for example by identifying areas in which changes in data management practice have the greatest potential to support FAIR principles. We also support the adoption of data management standards.

Recently the cluster projects were invited to contribute to two surveys administered by FAIRsFAIR to assess the prevailing landscape and develop recommendations to enable and promote FAIR policies and practices. Their responses will be fed into FAIRsFAIR recommendations to EOSC governance bodies regarding semantics and data practices.


EOSCSecretariat

 
The EOSC Secretariat delivers support to EOSC Governance and works openly and inclusively with communities. FAIRsFAIR engages with the EOSC Secretariat to coordinate activities with associated projects. A Collaboration Agreement between FAIRsFAIR and EOSCSecretariat was signed in May 2019 and supports our work with the EOSC regional and thematic nodes (5B projects).

 


 

 

 

EOSC 5B Projects

These are national and thematic initiatives across Europe which support EOSC implementation in different EU countries. Their main goal is to gather representation from national or thematic  initiatives in order to coordinate data infrastructures and services in their own territory.

ExPaNDS

EOSC-Nordic

EOSC-Pillar

EOSC-Synergy

NI4OS-Europe

As part of a larger Collaboration Agreement to be signed between FAIRsFAIR, EOSCSecretariat, and the EOSC "5B" projects, task forces have been set up to cover topics which are largely in line with the EOSC Working Groups: Landscaping, Training, Service Onboarding, Dissemination and Skills. These task forces will collaborate with the FAIR Working Group on activities related to FAIR data. 

FAIR Assessment and certification of digital objects and data repositories

On Thursday 26 November the InfraEOSC-5 FAIR data and infrastructure Task Force organised a special edition of its usual monthly meeting to present to the European Commission the key work being carried out in FAIR data assessment and certification by the InfraEOSC-5 call funded initiatives. These initiatives are EOSC-synergy, EOSC-Pillar, EOSC-Nordic, NI4OS-Europe, ExPaNDS, FAIRsFAIR, and EOSCsecretariat.eu. The event was co-organised by EOSCsecretariat.eu and FAIRsFAIR and engaged all the InfraEOSC-5 call projects actively involved in the FAIR Task Force. The aim was to provide an overview of the tools created, challenges faced, lessons learned, and recommendations formulated regarding FAIR Assessment and certification of digital objects and data repositories. The meeting also offered a deep-dive into practical use cases that demonstrate the impact of applying the current tools to different communities across Europe, and the priorities for the stakeholders involved.

The associated report contains the information presented and comprehensively documents the challenges, the lessons learned, and the recommendations from the InfraEOSC-5 projects regarding the activities underway in the EOSC region on FAIR data assessment and certification.

Download the report

Access the presentations

Other Projects

RDA Europe

FREYA

OpenAIRE

EOSC-hub

With its emphasis on building social, technical and cross-disciplinary links to enable the sharing of open and interoperable research data on a global scale, the Research Data Alliance (RDA) has much to contribute to the FAIRsFAIR project. FAIRsFAIR partners have identified and are actively engaging the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Interest and Working Groups whose priorities most closely match our own.  The FAIRsFAIR Top 10 is presented here. As a means to improve discovery, navigation, retrieval, and access to research resources in the EU and globally, FREYA works to extend the infrastructure for persistent identifiers (PIDs) as a core component of open research. OpenAIRE offers a unique set of services to embed open science into researcher workflows and promote opening up, sharing and reuse of research outcomes. EOSC-hub brings together multiple service providers to create the Hub: a single contact point for European researchers and innovators to discover, access, use and reuse a broad spectrum of resources for advanced data-driven research.
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