The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is an environment for hosting and processing research data to support EU science.

The ambition of the EOSC is to provide European researchers, innovators, companies and citizens with a federated and open multi-disciplinary environment where they can publish, find and re-use data, tools and services for research, innovation and educational purposes. The Consortium for European Social Science Data Archives is actively contributing to realising the EOSC through its involvement in the European funded projects SSHOC, EOSC Future, Triple, and EOSC Enhance.

CESSDA coordinates SSHOC to overcome domain specific silos and connect SSH user communities to EOSC.

The future EOSC is shaped along action lines that are detailed in close collaboration between the EOSC governance and the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). The ESFRI cluster projects - ENVRI-FAIR, EOSC-Life, ESCAPE, EOSC-Life, PaNOSC and SSHOC - were launched in 2019 in order to implement interfaces to integrate computer and data management solutions, to create cross-border and open cooperation spaces and to promote clouds via the EOSC portal for a larger user community. Through its cluster projects, ESFRI steers the integration and consolidation of thematic e-infrastructure platforms in preparation for connecting them to EOSC. The five cluster projects produced position papers (2020 and 2021 position papers) reflecting their views on and expectations of EOSC, as well as the ESFRI contributions to the European data infrastructure.

SSHOC provides the social sciences, humanities, and heritage science contribution to the EOSC by:

• Interconnecting existing and new infrastructures to build the SSH Cloud
• Maximising data reuse through Open Science and FAIR principles
• Providing training resources, a training network, and training activities
• Setting up an appropriate governance model

CESSDA’s coordination efforts in SSHOC have been highlighted by the EC reviewers as: “a very well organised and managed project … and created a strong brand in the first 18 months. The project is not only operationally, but also financially very well managed, showing efficiency and respecting the financial plan”. In a project now counting 200+ people and 50 institutions, that is a great milestone achieved.

In its efforts to overcome domain specific barriers and connecting user communities to the EOSC, CESSDA actively seeks to connect additional SSH Research Infrastructures to the Social Science and Humanities Open Cloud, such as EURHISFIRM, RESILIENCE and upcoming COORDINATE, and OPERAS.

Implementing the European Open Science Cloud in EOSC Future

The EOSC Future started in April 2021 and will deliver a durable and effective set of EOSC components, used by an increasing number of researchers and other users, in a co-creation process with the users of the EOSC community. It will bring together all major stakeholders in EOSC, from the e-Infrastructures, Science Clusters, and other international players. CESSDA, as coordinator of the SSH cluster, actively onboards SSHOC to EOSC Future.

Enabling researchers to discover and reuse SSH data in TRIPLE

The TRIPLE project is developing a full multilingual and multicultural solution for the appropriation of SSH resources. The GoTriple platform will provide a 360° discovery experience thanks to linked exploration provided by the Isidore search engine developed by CNRS and a coherent solution providing innovative tools to support research (visualisation, annotation, trust building system, crowdfunding, social network, and recommender system). In the project, new ways to conduct, connect and discover research are imagined; it is promoting cultural diversity inside Europe, supporting scientific, industrial, and societal applications of SSH science; and connecting researchers and projects with other stakeholders: citizens, policy makers, companies, enabling them to take part in research projects or to answer to some of their issues. CESSDA´s participants in the project are also its service providers - ADP (SI), UKDS (UK), FSD (FI).

Enhancing the EOSC portal and connecting thematic clouds in EOSC Enhance

EOSC Enhance project aims to enhance the service provider interface and to accelerate the deployment and uptake of EOSC services and resources in the EOSC catalogue. As one of the ESFRI Cluster representatives, CESSDA is involved in the further development of the EOSC catalogue, as well as in advising on functional specifications and testing API for interconnecting and harvesting thematic services. Participation in this project is an opportunity for reaching new users and for aligning SSHOC project instruments and resources with EOSC. CESSDA already successfully onboarded two of its tools, CESSDA DC ™ and DMEG ™, to the EOSC Portal:

• The CESSDA Data Catalogue contains the metadata of all data in the holdings of CESSDA’s service providers. It is a one-stop-shop for search and discovery, enabling effective access to European social science research data. Here we explain how European researchers benefit from the CESSDA DC ™ .
• The CESSDA Data Management Expert Guide is designed by European experts to help social science researchers make their research data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.

Discover social scientific datasets you need for your research in the CESSDA DC ™.

Check the CESSDA DMEG ™ for your Data Management Plan.

Join the CESSDA Roadshow to learn more about how CESSDA contributes to research tackling global challenges, register here.

Image credits: Blomberg, Niklas, & Petzold, Andreas. (2020). ESFRI thematic cluster view on EOSC. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3631247

A news item by Trust-IT