August 2020
The ERIC Forum supports the worldwide movement towards open science and looks forward to working closely with EOSC and other research infrastructures to make data (and computational services which generate or validate this data) available through the European Open Science Cloud. To contribute to the success of EOSC, ERIC Forum members commit to making data, publications and software as open and accessible as possible, adhering to the FAIR data principles.
The Forum considers that data quality and reproducibility are two critical factors for the success of EOSC. It also recognises that research infrastructures are, to some extent, responsible for delivering data and services that meet the quality requirements set by the EOSC Rules of Participation.
To support the efficient use of EOSC, the ERIC Forum suggests to develop a robust policy on data verification, and software and service assessment. It is a recognised issue that several research domains face structural difficulties related to delivering FAIR data. Such difficulties do not only pertain to the later phases of data management, such as validation and publication. The biggest challenge in the open data culture and open data mandates is that they require completely new workflows and significant infrastructural support throughout and eventually even beyond the lifecycle of a research project. Research communities therefore need support, new skills and appropriate tools and services related to each phase of the data management process. The broadening and opening of access to data through EOSC will make it even more important and urgent to address this issue. The ERIC Forum advocates for a vigorous data policy framework and looks forward to working closely with EOSC on making such policy.
To further support the development of EOSC, members of the ERIC Forum are involved in five different cluster projects of the EOSC panorama, i.e. ENVRI-FAIR (environmental research), EOSC-LIFE (life sciences), ESCAPE (astronomy and particle physics), PaNOSC (multidisciplinary scientific analysis), and SSHOC (social sciences and humanities). In addition, the ERIC Forum Implementation Project has a task (Task 6.2: ERICs technical and innovation multi-scale integration) dedicated to the integration of ERIC-related developments into pan-European e-infrastructures, and particularly into EOSC.
About the ERIC Forum
The ERIC Forum is a strategic platform bringing together international research infrastructures that have acquired the legal status of a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) and also those that are preparing to become an ERIC. There are currently, 21 ERICs and 11 preparatory ERICs serving researchers in five scientific domains as defined by the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap, namely energy, environment, health and food, physical sciences and engineering, and social and cultural innovation. For more information about the ERIC Forum visit: www.eric-forum.eu.
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