e-Infrastructure Reflection Group Support Programme 6

Project Information

e-IRGSP6

Grant agreement ID: 823761

DOI

10.3030/823761

Project closed

EC signature date 23 October 2018

Start date 1 January 2019

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 599 981,25

EU contribution

€ 599 981,25

Coordinated by

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ UNIVERSITAET HANNOVER
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - e-IRGSP6 (e-Infrastructure Reflection Group Support Programme 6)

Reporting period: 2020-04-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

e-IRGSP6 was the 6th implementation of the support programme to the e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG). The objectives of the project were to support the activities of e-IRG including its cooperation with ESFRI and to support the implementation of the EOSC and the European Data Infrastructure. Further objectives of the project were to promote a change of culture of research communities towards open data, robust data management and data sharing practices and to assist the Commission, Member States and Associated Countries in communication activities on role, mission and implementation of the EDI/EuroHPC and the EOSC.

e-IRG is an inter-governmental and recognised advisory body on e-Infrastructure policies in Europe. The vision of e-IRG is to "facilitate integration in the area of European e-Infrastructures and connected services, within and between member states, at the European level and globally”. Following this vision, its mission is “to support both coherent, innovative and strategic European e-Infrastructure policy making and the development of convergent and sustainable e-Infrastructure services”. e-IRG actively stimulates discussion with and between all stakeholder groups through its biannual implementation of workshops.

e-IRGSP6 has provided the secretariat to the governing bodies of e-IRG, the Chair and the Executive Board, as well as to the e-IRG plenum itself, supported the day-to-day operations, organisation of the e-IRG events. e-IRGSP6 has also provided support to the e-IRG’s policy activities and provided dissemination, liaison and communication activities to distribute the outcomes of e-IRG. In order to address the COVID-19 travel restrictions and still facilitate the informal communication between the delegates, a new, rather informal form of information exchange for e-IRG delegates has been introduced, namely the e-IRG Café. Supported by the e-IRGSP6 project five e-IRG Cafés have been organised as virtual meetings for e-IRG delegates only. The e-IRG Cafés have been welcomed and are very well embraced by the delegates.

The e-IRGSP6 project, through its successful support to e-IRG, fully achieved all its objectives and satisfied all requests from the e-IRG delegates and e-IRG governing bodies. Considering the feedback received via evaluation forms, it is possible to claim that the project has done exceptional work.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

e-IRGSP6 has provided secretarial services to the e-IRG and organised all e-IRG workshops and delegates meetings. Six e-IRG workshops have been implemented:

* The Romanian EU Presidency addressed various RDA activities, Swiss e-Infrastructure initiatives as well as ongoing EU initiatives on EOSC, Artificial Intelligence and EuroHPC.

* The Finnish EU Presidency focused on "e-Infrastructure for education and skills", "Artificial Intelligence as a cross-cutting theme" and "Cyber security in the e-Infrastructure context".

* The Croatian EU Presidency theme was “Grand Challenges of e-Infrastructures within the new ERA” and addressed "Future skills in the new European Research Area", "Empowering the e-Infrastructure partnerships in ERA" and "Making the data and services FAIR".

* The German EU Presidency concentrated on “e-Infrastructures in support of addressing societal challenges” and dealt with "Policies for the development of Research Data Infrastructures from different perspectives", "Digital Transformation and Public Health" and "Digitalisation and Green Deal".

* The Portuguese EU Presidency theme was “e-Infrastructures for Climate Change and Digital Transitions” and addressed "EOSC and data interoperability", "Addressing the climate change – the digital aspects", and provided an outlook discussion on technological, policy and socio-economic aspects of the long-term development of e-Infrastructures and "Going beyond: How policies can shape the development of research infrastructures facilitating data sovereignty, innovation and cultural change"

All e-IRG Workshops received very positive ratings. Since 2020 "communiqués" for all e-IRG Workshops have been created, summarising the outcomes of these workshops.

e-IRGSP6 has supported e-IRG’s policy-activities on the document "National Nodes - Getting organized; how far are we?" and the e-IRG White Paper 2021. e-IRGSP6 provided content and managed the document creation process. The White Paper 2021 addressed the topic of “Good practices of coordination within and across e-Infrastructures and thematic Research Infrastructures” providing good practices at institutional, national and regional levels. For both documents the input from the countries was analysed and summaries were provided. The e-IRG White Paper 2021 is to be published in November 2021.

e-IRGSP6 has provided support to create additional policy documents providing the delegates with information about the value and prospect of e-IRG: "Value of e-IRG and prospect" and "e-IRG mandate under Horizon Europe".

The Dissemination, Liaison and Communication (WP4) activities of e-IRGSP6 include the e-IRG web space, the e-IRG Knowledge Base, the publication of e-IRG Magazines to disseminate the outcomes of e-IRG, provide information about e-IRG delegates meetings and workshops, as well as information from other projects’ or initiatives’ events in the field of e-Infrastructures. The work progress and achievements of WP4 have continued normally until January 2021, when the project faced the tragic loss of its WP4 leader, which was a serious disruption in the project and in particular WP4.

Finally, liaison activities have been used both to benefit in the organisation of the e-IRG workshops (for the workshop programme liaising with all major e-Infrastructure projects and initiatives), to promote the e-IRG policy work (such as the liaison with ESFRI, RDA, LIBER, EOSC and others) and finally exchange information and disseminate the e-IRG outputs and communiqués.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

e-IRGSP6 supported e-IRG in its action plan to contribute at the policy level towards the implementation of the e-Infrastructure Commons at the European and national levels. This was accomplished by promoting coordination and interoperability practices of e-Infrastructures and increase the engagement of the user communities.

e-IRGSP6 also supported e-IRG in proposing and recommending further actions on existing EU policies, and/or designing new EU policies towards an improved, interoperable and integrated ecosystem of European Research Infrastructures and e-Infrastructures, including EOSC and EDI/EuroHPC.

e-IRGSP6 supported e-IRG in the organization of the e-IRG Workshops and through these the cultural change towards open science, data sharing and robust data management practices was promoted at the policy level.

e-IRGSP6 disseminated and promoted the outcomes of e-IRG (policy papers, recommendations, communiqués) and through these the further development and the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud and the European Data Infrastructure was supported.

Finally, the open e-IRG workshops along with other targeted activities with key stakeholders provided a platform for policy makers, funders, e-Infrastructure providers/projects, and user communities to exchange knowledge and information on e-Infrastructure developments and needs, and thus create bridges and cross-fertilisation platforms between these stakeholder communities.

In memory of Ad Emmen

e-irgsp6 logo

Screenshot from the September 2021 delegates meeting

Screenshot from the May 2020 delegates meeting

e-IRG logo