Both the EOSC EDEN and FIDELIS projects started in January 2025 and they were set up to be complementary in their objectives. They are sister projects: many consortium members are involved in both, while others provide their expertise to one or the other. In collaboration with FIDELIS, the EDEN project team tasked with expert and community engagement secured funding to run at least three bootcamps through the lifetime of the projects.
1st Bootcamp: Laying the Foundations for Long-Term Data Preservation
On 19th November 2025, the first bootcamp took place in Paris in the beautiful L’Atelier venue, one day after the inaugural RDA Europe Summit. The bootcamp was open to all stakeholders, with a particular focus on those involved in the digital research repository community - as well as several project partners. As long-term data preservation is acknowledged to be a pressing concern, experts and interested parties were enthusiastic about the opportunity to meet in person and discuss the shared objectives of the EDEN and FIDELIS projects and those of the audience.
There were four sessions altogether at the bootcamp with three dedicated to EDEN work and one for FIDELIS. For the former, Giacomo Cannizzaro (from SURF in the Netherlands), Wim Hugo (from DANS, also in the Netherlands) and Bertrand Caron (from TIB but based in Paris) provided an overview of different EDEN topics that they each are involved in while S. Venkataraman (Venkat, also from DANS) presented work from the FIDELIS side.
Giacomo presented the EDEN work on discipline-specific requirements, validation and future use, which essentially involves the identification of end-user (typically researcher) requirements, and validation of outputs from the EDEN project that will make it easier for end-users to safeguard their digital research outputs. The latter is being done by project partners themselves and cover a spectrum of research disciplines including social sciences and humanities, life sciences and physical sciences.
On the more technical subjects of specifications and architecture for long-term access and preservation services, Wim provided a comprehensive overview of activities, and also in relation to work that is soon going to be completed in the RDA Technical Repository Service Providers Working Group (TRSPs WG).
Bertrand, meanwhile, presented core preservation processes (CPPs) which are looking at research data (re)appraisal and what attributes make a research data object a candidate for long-term preservation. He then engaged the audience in their experiences and expertise on file formats and other aspects of good data management practices and invited them to consider this, especially in relation to the guidance available within the set of CPPs.
Tying these three threads together and their implications for the FIDELIS project, Venkat introduced the FIDELIS Trustworthy Digital Repository (TDR) Network and its aims. He provided an opportunity to the audience to discuss and suggest possible avenues for the FIDELIS Network and how to sustain EDEN project outputs . The Network will become a self-sufficient entity and could therefore carry forward outputs that are generated through EDEN.
For more detail about the 1st Bootcamp, please check out this report in Zenodo, as well as the slides that were used during the Bootcamp!
2nd Bootcamp: Structuring Trustworthy Repositories in a Complex Climate
Building on the 1st Bootcamp, a second one was organised to co-locate with the 2026 International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC26) on 16th February 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia, again in another beautiful venue, the historic Esplanade Hotel. The theme for this year’s IDCC was "AI, austerity, and authoritarianism: contemporary challenges in digital curation”, amongst which data sovereignty featured heavily. Indeed, one aspect in the 2nd EOSC EDEN/FIDELIS Bootcamp that was discussed was the impact from today’s geopolitical climate and the safeguarding of research data. However, the 2nd Bootcamp’s primary foci were the Transparent Trustworthy Repository Attributes Matrix (TTRAM) being developed through the FIDELIS project and the CPPs. This Bootcamp also explored the purpose of the FIDELIS TDR Network in relation to outputs generated by the two projects and also in relation to the proposed Expert Curation and Preservation Network that is being established through the EDEN project. This latter network is distinct from the FIDELIS TDR Network in that it will be composed of individuals with a broad interest and expertise in the tasks associated with curation and long-term data preservation but may not necessarily be part of a repository.
The agenda was delivered again by four people: this time Micky Lindlar (covering the CPPs and based at TIB in Germany), Hervé L’Hours (covering TTRAM, and from UKDS in the UK), Philipp Conzett (covering the Expert Curation and Preservation Network and from UiT in Norway) and S. Venkataraman again (FIDELIS TDR Network). Whereas the 1st Bootcamp was a half-day event, this 2nd Bootcamp was full-day and allowed more time for participants to provide feedback and explore some themes that arose in the 1st Bootcamp as well as a deeper and more practical dive into both projects’ outputs. The theme this time was “structuring and understanding the activities, functions, and processes of trustworthy repositories and archives." Participants were guided to discuss and use the CPPs and TTRAM as tools for self-evaluation on their own institutions and how they influence the practices. Since this is a wide-ranging topic for discussion in such a limited time, participants were also asked to restrict themselves to thinking about one of three key areas: (i) external and/or internal factors that affect the inputs (such as legal/ethical, policies, technology), (ii) specifying workflows and which involve things identified in (i) which feed into planning workflows, or (iii) implementing the eventual operational workflows identified in the previous steps. Participants could also choose to view these holistically.
In the afternoon, Philipp and Venkat presented the work going into establishing two networks which could potentially have overlap. The EOSC EDEN Expert Curation and Preservation Network (hereafter referred to as the EDEN Curation Network) aims to bring together individuals who are experts in data curation practices and research data long-term preservation. In October 2025, a workshop held in KU Leuven was the first step towards establishing this network and brought together 30 participants from across Europe to discuss these themes and how a network would better facilitate best practices across research performing organisations and repositories. After the soft-launch of the FIDELIS TDR Network in April 2025, with its size and function gathering pace since then, this Bootcamp provided an opportune moment to explore the relationship between it and the proposed EDEN Curation Network. Participants were again invited to discuss in breakout groups how these Networks could align and what their relationship is to the CPPs and TTRAM.
Please look out for the accompanying report for this Bootcamp in the near future and which will be linked to from the EDEN/FIDELIS website!
Looking forward
Plans are already being set in motion for the 3rd EDEN/FIDELIS Bootcamp as both projects will reach their halfway point in summer 2026. The 3rd Bootcamp will be announced in the coming weeks. Follow us through social media and the EDEN-FIDELIS website to stay informed about this and all developments from the projects!