EOSC EDEN and FIDELIS attended 26-27 June 2025 the coordination meeting of the EOSC-related projects funded under Horizon Europe. All 33 active EOSC projects gathered in Brussels to learn about upcoming European policies, next steps in building up the EOSC Federation and the future of EOSC.
EOSC is currently in a significant transition, shifting from its preparatory phase to an
operational federation. The 13 candidate nodes are expected to work together with the EOSC EU Node and demonstrate the added value of the Federation through multi-node use cases at the next EOSC Symposium 3-5 November 2025.
Jean-David Malo, Acting Director, European Research Area and Innovation, EC emphasized that we are living exciting times not only because of accelerated progress in implementing EOSC but also due to many important policy developments, such as the ongoing work on the new multiannual financial framework (MMF) and the EU strategy for research and competitiveness. Michael Arentoft, Head of Unit Open Science and Research Infrastructures, EC continued on the policy topic explaining that Open Science and research infrastructure are very prominent in the ERA Policy Agenda 2025-2027, confirming the long term support for EOSC. The EOSC Association (EOSC-A) President Karel Luyben gave an update from the Association’s perspective, emphasizing the importance of the EOSC Federation and recapping major steps taken in the past to arrive where we are today.
In addition to providing updates on the contributions made by the EC and the EOSC-A towards achieving the strategic and operational objectives of the EOSC Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), an important aspect of the coordination meeting was to deepen the collaboration between the EOSC projects, the EC and the EOSC-A. The newly launched HORIZON-INFRA-2024-EOSC projects were invited to give a presentation to explain their scope and mission to the meeting participants. Project Coordinator Anu Märkälä and Technical Coordinator Juha Lehtonen (CSC) presented EOSC EDEN and Project Manager Tarita Maraqa (CSC) presented FIDELIS. Breaks between the meeting sessions and the working dinner provided ample time for socialising and establishing new connections.
Going forward, the future directions for EOSC include among other things the expansion and deepening of the EOSC Federation, AI for FAIR & FAIR for AI, security & data sovereignty and linking EOSC to other common European Data Spaces and beyond. The work continues as one team to implement EOSC as fully operational, federated infrastructure that enables the sharing of FAIR data and services across borders and disciplines.
Read the full post-event and reportage and access materials by EOSC-A