FAIRCORE4EOSC, funded by the Horizon Europe Framework Programme, is a project contributing to the co-programmed European Partnership on the European Open Science Cloud. The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a flagship EU initiative to deepen Open Science practices across the European Research Area (ERA). As such it contributes to several actions of the ERA policy agenda (European Commission, 2022). EOSC is also recognised in the European strategy for data as the data space for science, research and innovation to be fully aligned with the other sectoral data spaces defined in the strategy (A European Strategy for Data, 2020).
The topics FAIRCORE4EOSC set out to adress were:
- Identifiers: Introducing new resource types; machine-actionable persistent identifiers (PIDs); establishing a PID meta-resolver; standardising PID graphs; PID compliance framework to ensure compliance to the EOSC PID policy and to ensure quality of service for PIDs;
- Metadata and Ontologies: Provide or embrace/stimulate existing registries of metadata schemas, ontologies and crosswalks, develop services that build on metadata registries and can facilitate the creation and sharing of crosswalks;
- Interoperability: Enable discovery of data sources available in different formats, making search tools available; Provide tools for quality validation of metadata records and of digital objects; Implement EOSC PID Policy;
- Research Software: metadata description standards for research software, automated deposit of new releases into a scholarly repository and Software Heritage.
As a Research and Innovation Action (RIA), FAIRCORE4EOSC developed nine new EOSC-Core components to support a FAIR EOSC and to enhance interoperability and discoverability of research outputs. Development activities of the components were carried out by utilising existing services and technologies, as far as possible. To ensure that testing and development of the components is driven by user needs, the project has carried out five user-centric case studies (WP7), documented in the “D7.2 Report on the Release of Case Studies”. The case studies also act as early adopters of the components in the communities they represent. While the case studies focus on immediate community benefit and integrating several new services, the demonstrator tasks in the work packages focus on demonstrating the utility of individual services in direct interaction with the service developers within the WP.
FAIRCORE4EOSC was intended to align closely with operational EOSC infrastructure, but the reconceptualisation of EOSC has complicated achieving project aims regarding the integration of the new FAIRCORE4EOSC components with the EOSC-Core. Due to the EOSC Federation and Node concept, introduced via the EOSC Procurement, the concepts of the Minimum Viable EOSC (MVE), the EOSC-Core, EOSC-Exchange and Federated Data as described in the “Solutions for a sustainable EOSC” -report from the Sustainability Working Group (2020) and used in the FAIRCORE4EOSC proposal and the project contract with the European Commission, became unclear. The project was affected negatively affected by the decisions taken by the EOSC Partnership and other actors in its capacity to carry out its original objectives fully, which were
Objective 1: Develop and operate new EOSC-Core components enabling a FAIR EOSC ecosystem
Objective 2: Integrate the new FAIRCORE4EOSC components within the EOSC-Core
Objective 3: Provide the EOSC ecosystem with a Compliance Assessment Toolkit whereby at minimum the EOSC PID Policy compliance can be measured, recorded and monitored
Objective 4: Co-design the new components with the relevant stakeholders and ensure their uptake
Objective 5: Contribute to the EOSC Partnership
Objective 6: Liaise with the HORIZON-INFRA-2021-EOSC-01-05 project and the EOSC ecosystem
