EOSCsecretariat.eu has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Programme call H2020-INFRAEOSC-2018-4, grant Agreement number 831644

Service Offering

1 Our approach in a nutshell EOSCsecretariat.eu is a proactive, dynamic and flexible organisational structure with all the necessary competences, resources and vision to support EOSC according to the requirments set in the EOSC Implementation Roadmap.

The roadmap advocates a staged approach in establishing the EOSC governance, with a first phase primarily led by the MS and the European Commission (EC), with other stakeholders in an advisory role, and a second phase when the steering will be mainly stakeholder driven, with funders keeping a higher level oversight role. The EOSC Executive Board has been appointed to assist the Commission in the first phase of development of the EOSC until end of 2020, and will help to prepare the transition to the second phase of development of the EOSC.

EOSCsecretariat.eu will provide the cornerstone of support to this framework for the duration of the initial phase and the support for the establishment of the second phase. Steered by the EOSCsecrtariat.eu steering group, in full accord with the EC, it will remain agile to adapt to requirements that may arise in response to needs and decisions taken by the EOSC Executive Board. EOSCsecretariat.eu will serve the EOSC community with the clear understanding that it has a time limited existence itself and will in due course be replaced by any formally underpinned function within a legally constituted governance vehicle.

The project will adopt a Co-creation approach working with the community to deliver many of the activities and has reserved a substantial portion of the budget for organisations not in the consortium. Co-creation identifies the EOSC Executive Board as the Co-creation users to be called to decide on and deliver the actions to be performed in the course of this project and its objectives, in consultation and with the involvement of the stakeholder community. This will be done by introducing a Co-creation budget of almost 60% of call’s total for its realisation. This approach will enable a high degree of flexibility in order to address any foreseen or unforeseen challenges that may arise during the project.

The 30-month project will thus help drive forward and implement the EOSC, putting the stakeholder community centre stage, having identified 12 high-level stakeholder groups, starting from Research Infrastructures, but also e-Infrastructures, Universities & Libraries, Global Coordination Fora & Organisations, and EU Agencies among them.

EOSCsecretariat.eu is characterised by being neutral towards the community it is serving and the decision-making bodies it is supporting. For this reason, the proposed consortium is led by a neutral policy consulting organisation with no vested interest in any particular EOSC component or group of stakeholders. It is further composed of a balanced selection of knowledgeable partners, having strong connections to the broader global community, who are able to understand and serve all sectors contributing to the future EOSC.

EOSCsecretariat.eu has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Programme call H2020-INFRAEOSC-2018-4, grant Agreement number 831644

2 Our values and overarching principles EOSCsecretariat.eu…

• Takes an enabling and advisory approach into supporting and facilitating the EOSC Executive Board

• Remains flexible to the needs of the Executive Board, ready to respond to any changes and needs that may arise in the course of the EOSC realisation.

• Is proactive and dynamic in supporting an efficient and effective pan-European dialogue towards making

the EOSC a reality. Understanding the volatility of EOSC developments, it will scout for and proactively, under the guidance of the Executive Board, tackle challenges and grasp opportunities.

• Commits its independent character to remain neutral to any potential priority of any stakeholder or of

their group. • Supports a user-centred EOSC implementation, the majority of the budget is put in the reservoir for the

Co-creation process, on which the EOSC Executive Board, and the community of stakeholders at a second stage, will be called to decide on and deliver the actions to be performed in the course of this project to fulfil its objectives.

• Ensures the structural involvement of existing individual pan-European research and e-infrastructures

through regular, organised consultation with their leadership and the Commission Services responsible for them, as well as the existing fora such as for example the ESFRI forum and the e-IRG.

• Has an interim character, as it aims to bridge the period starting from the launch of the first phase of the

EOSC governance and transition to its second phase post-2020, handing-over to the EOSC governance. • Works in accordance with the Open Science principles.

EOSCsecretariat.eu has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Programme call H2020-INFRAEOSC-2018-4, grant Agreement number 831644

3 The EOSCsecretariat.eu concept and the work plan 3.1 The concept The concept behind EOSCsecretariat.eu is two-fold: the 360o support to the EOSC Governance, and the engagement of stakeholders in the EOSC realisation. The EOSC secretariat, working for and under the supervision of the Executive Board, will monitor and support the implementation of the required activities to meet our strategic objectives: the engagement with the stakeholders community & coordination with related initiatives (WP3), the support services for the Working Groups (WP4), the delivery of analysis and studies to support EOSC in practice (WP5), the support services to the Executive Board (WP6). This overall strategy will be assisted by an effective Communication, Dissemination, and awareness raising strategy (WP7). The Figure presented here, mirrors the EOSC Governance framework to the EOSCsecretariat.eu WP structure.

Fig.1 - Translating the EOSC Governance framework to the EOSCsecretariat.eu

3.2 Our services EOSCsecretariat.eu will provide the following services:

• Engaging with the Stakeholder community & coordination with related initiatives: EOSC secretariat will facilitate the consultative role of the EOSC stakeholders for the effective implementation of EOSC and it will prepare the ground for the more stakeholder-driven second phase of the EOSC implementation. The Stakeholder Forum and the coordination and consultation with strategic, thematic, EU or global initiatives are among the activites.

• Support to the Working Groups: EOSC secretariat will establish the processes for participation in WGs, communicate with the EOSC communities on WG rules of participation, intermediate results and outcomes, and facilitate the operation of the WGs through secretariat services.

EOSCsecretariat.eu has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Programme call H2020-INFRAEOSC-2018-4, grant Agreement number 831644

• Analysis and studies to support EOSC in practice: EOSC secretariat will commission and coordinate studies and reports to help progress with the EOSC realisation. It will initially focus on investigating innovative business models for EOSC, rules of participation for service providers and users, and the legal and organisational framework for sustainable governance.

• Support to the Executive Board: The support services will facilitate the work of the Executive Board, tailored to its needs. They will be set up to be agile so as to adjust to potential policy evolutions over time and may include agenda/priorities setting, rapporteur-ing, support in writing high level policy discussion documents, and other relevant tasks as required.

• Concise reporting: The Secreteriat will wrap-up all project’s knowledge and outputs of the above services in concise, comprehensive and regular reporting to the Executive Board. The reporting will keep the Executing Board informed about the developments in the working Groups, the position and needs of stakholders and the linking/coordination with the EOSC related projects and initiatives, the outcome of the co-creation activities, as well as the main findings and conclusion of the studies.

• Communication, Dissemination, Stakeholder forum and events: The communication team of the EOSC secreteriat will plan and deliver communication, marketing and dissemination services for a pan-European roll-out of the EOSC, deliver the EOSC Secretariat web presence and dissemination materials providing visibility to stakeholders, and event management. It will also maintain an international tech & policy observatory and liaisons with non-EU Countries, and organise the projects major events (including the annual stakeholder event).

4 Our consortium The efficient, effective and transparent delivery of the EOSCsecretariat.eu is guaranteed through the overall coordination by Technopolis Group, an organisation with no vested interests in the EOSC decision-making bodies and Working Groups. Technopolis Group is an independent research and consulting organisation with an excellent understanding of the overall ERA and EU policy and legal landscape, with an outstanding track record in supporting Member States' operation in the area of research, innovation and infrastructures, and expertise on pan-European monitoring mechanisms for ERA related activities, serving as a reference institution for the research and innovation community.

The consortium comprises key European organisations acting as facilitators in different domains of the EOSC layers and operations. The partners also bring in expertise and knowledge in many domains including data management services, open science policy, data centre, e-Infrastructure and Research Infrastructure operations, technical and legal interoperability, and governance. Partners already have experience with providing EOSC type of services at national level. CNR is part of ICDI (Italian Computing and Data Infrastructure), a forum of major Italian Research Infrastructures and e-Infrastructures representatives promoting synergies at the national level and coordinating with EU and global initiatives. CSC has been implementing the Finnish Open Science agenda since 2011, and provides nationally the services funded under the Finnish national open science initiative which is directly steered by the Finnish Ministry of Research and Education. KIT is the coordinator of the Helmholtz Data Federation (HDF), a national federated data infrastructure, in Germany. UKRI is the new research funder in the UK that bring together the seven previous Research Councils and other research funding bodies. ARC leads the national open science working group, co-leads the implementation of the national data services carrying along 11 research centers, and puts on the table RI expertise as it is the national node of key EU research infrastructures. CERN values and sees opportunities in making use of commercial cloud services to supplement its existing in-house and WLCG

EOSCsecretariat.eu has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Programme call H2020-INFRAEOSC-2018-4, grant Agreement number 831644

managed resources, in order to meet the increasing capacity required to handle the future upgrades of the LHC accelerator and experiments. GÉANT develops, delivers and promotes advanced network and associated e-infrastructure services for research and education and it is owned by its core membership of the European National Research and Education Network (NREN) organisations. Stichting GO-FAIR is in the process of developing a comprehensive certification programme for the FAIR community, including but not limited to certification of data files, FAIR Data Points ( FDP’s), software, algorithms, individuals consultants, trainers, service suppliers and organisations. Trust-IT is an SME specialised in research analysis & communication in the field of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) and Research infrastructures and e-Infrastructure environments as well as the development & implementation of innovative web & mobile applications across Europe and globally. Open Science and Open Research Data is a key value to TU Wien, it has recently established a new Center for Research Data Management, bridging the boundaries between the central computing facilities, the library and information services, the Research and Transfer Services Units, as well as the Research Faculties.

Furthermore, approximately 60% of the total budget has been reserved for inclusion in the project activities of key stakeholders from outside the consortium through a Co-creation approach.