How to make the European open science cloud project work

The EOSC (The European Open Science Cloud) is a complicated beast. The vision of building an ecosystem of interoperable data and services that enables cross-border, interdisciplinary and open research is beautiful in its simplicity. However, the reality of implementing this vision is incredibly complex. 

The opinion piece Making the European Open Science Cloud work: where to go from here? discusses the key overarching challenges that must be overcome to facilitate and accelerate the implementation of the EOSC. The paper also discusses how these challenges are implemented in the EOSC, what methods and approaches can be recommended to address these challenges. 

The authors advocate a modular, iterative approach that ensures inclusiveness and puts researchers at the center. Specifically, they emphasized aspects related to ensuring direct input from scientists who work with data on a daily basis to ensure that policies and services are tailored to their needs. Furthermore, many feedback loops should be provided and there should be openness about how that feedback was processed and followed up to build trust. Finally, harmonizing a central vision and using clear language that everyone can understand is seen as an important task.

The opinion was written by Sarah Jones (GÉANT), Rudolf Dimper (ESRF), Ingrid Dillo (DANS), Hilary Hanahoe (RDA), and Shalini Kurapati (Clearbox AI & Politecnico di Torino). Together, they delve into the challenges and recommendations of the EOSC and provide insight into what they would do if they could do magic and change one thing to make the EOSC better.