On June 23, the European Commission and the EOSC Association signed a memorandum of understanding to implement the European Open Science Cloud platform. Learn why this step is seen as crucial to realizing Europe's Open Science vision.
Ensuring a common research data platform, where information is searchable, accessible, interoperable and reusable, is the ultimate goal of EOSC – European Open Science Cloud.
In this way, it highlights the EOSC association, created in 2020 to implement this platform, will make it possible to promote “interdisciplinary and impactful science in the context of the digital age”.
The initiative's objectives align with the European Commission's vision for implementing an Open Science policy on the continent. As such, a memorandum of understanding was signed on June 23rd in Brussels, establishing a partnership between the association and the European Commission.
The document ensures that, by 2030, there will be a coordinated approach by the European Commission and its member states to investments and initiatives relating to the EOSC ecosystem, within the scope of the Horizon Europe framework.
The association highlights how this partnership strengthens the European Open Science policy, potentially generating "trust capital in digitally enabled and more open research processes," whose added value benefits not only scientists but society as a whole. "The EOSC offers an infrastructure that seeks to transform European Science," they emphasize.
The agreement was signed by the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Marya Gabriel, who believes that the EOSC project will allow "researchers to find, create, share and reuse forms of digital knowledge", which will lead to "new leads and innovations", as well as "greater productivity and reproducibility".
President Karel Luyben sees this agreement as "creating a path for the implementation of the EOSC" that will contribute to "more efficient, reproducible, and reliable science, more relevant to the needs of society, which, in turn, will be increasingly involved."
We recommend consulting the press release to find out more..
EOSC and Portugal
The EOSC is expected to have a profound impact on national research communities, as both national research data service providers and the institutions that use them to conduct science will need to align themselves with this European initiative.
In Portugal, the Foundation for Science and Technology, through its FCCN Unit, has been developing efforts in this area. Since October 2020, the FCT has been the organization mandated to represent Portugal's interests within the EOSC association, represented by national delegate João Mendes Moreira.
See also the work in the area of Digital Transformation in Research that FCCN is developing, with a view to strengthening investment in the area of open science at the national level, particularly in the management of research data.
