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Implementing EOSC in Ireland

HEAnet Conference 2025

Roberto Sabatino,

Research Engagement Officer, HEAnet

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Outline

Introduction to EOSC as an enabler of Open Science

The EOSC EU node

The EOSC federation of nodes

And Ireland ?

Connected initiatives

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Fundamentals of Open Science

European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) as the enabling infrastructure for Open Science, building the web of FAIR data and associated services

FAIR data

F for Findable

A for Accessible

I for Interoperable

R for Reusable (and I might add Reproducible)

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EOSC as an enabler of Open Science

  • Center for Open Science Strategy for Culture Change https://www.cos.io/blog/strategy-for-culture-change

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The EOSC EU node

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The EOSC Federation of nodes

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EOSC federation build-up

  • To have more than just 1 node (EOSC EU node)
    • More capacity, more services
    • More specialist services and serve the long tail of science

  • Working towards a federation of
    • National generic nodes
    • Thematic (disciplinary) nodes

  • Phase 1 includes 13 additional nodes
  • Phase 2 call for nodes announced this week in Brussels
  • Vision of a federation of >100 nodes

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Organisation

Offering

Oragnisation

Offering

CSC (Finland)

General Repository,

Competence centre.

Thematic repositories onboarded in stages.

Chipster: SW to analyse genomic data

ESRF/PaNosc

Infrastructure, VREs

CNR BlueCloud (Italy)

Thematic RI for marine research.

Data sets and VRE

EUDAT

RDM services

NCN (Poland)

Generic national. Repos and infrastructure

NFDI (DE)

Federated Repositories and associated services.

BBMI ERIC

Thematic node, Datasets and resources, notebooks

CNRS/ Dataterra

Thematic RI

CERN

“Onboarding” zenodo, Inspire, Indico, HepData, SW analysis workflow (reana)

ICSC

Generic infrastructure, thematic and academic repositories. Sensitive data

SURF (NL)

Aggregates resources from institutes, infra and repos. Sensitive data

CVTI (SK)

Generic national

LSRN (Elixir, EMBL, Instruct, Bioimanging)

Infrastructure and data resources

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Requirements for Federation: AAI architecture

Two integration options:

  • Connect as a Node to the EOSC AAI Federation (enrolment)��
  • Connect individual services to the EOSC EU Node (onboarding)

Source: Christos Kanellopoulos <christos.kanellopoulos@geant.org>

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Where are we in Ireland ?

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NORF NAP projects + networks.

SCOIR, MOSSi, iFRAME, PID Roadmap

Sonraí, TROPIC, PublishOA, CORD,…

Open Access Repository Assessment and Alignment

National Open Access Monitor, IRLDAT

IRLDAT

SSO

National HPC

National Production Services

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  • Connected initiatives
  • Disconnected Infrastructures

NORF NAP projects + networks.

SCOIR, MOSSi, iFRAME, PID Roadmap

Sonraí, TROPIC, PublishOA, CORD,…

Open Access Repository Assessment and Alignment

National Open Access Monitor, IRLDAT

IRLDAT

SSO

National HPC

National Production Services

Siloed, inconsistent resources

Data Respositories

Institutional HPC

Thematic RIs ( GDI, ELIXIR, ISSDA…)

Non–Research DI (data.gov.ie, commercial,…)

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A vision for Ireland�

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NORF NAP projects + networks.

SCOIR, MOSSi, iFRAME, PID Roadmap

Sonraí, TROPIC, PublishOA, CORD,…

Open Access Repository Assessment and Alignment

National Open Access Monitor, IRLDAT

IRLDAT

SSO

National HPC

National Production Services

EOSC Ireland Node

Thematic RI

(GDI,ELIXIR, ISSDA…)

Non-R DIs (data.gov.ie, commercial, etc)

Data Repositories

Connected initiatives

Connected Infrastructures

Opportunities for synergies

Gap in national landscape

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Producing a vision

From an initial HEAnet vision delivered in 2024 to a national vision paper delivered July 2025.

January 2025 to July 2025 intensive work with colleagues from universities and research centres

Implementing the EOSC in Ireland : https://zenodo.org/records/16266119

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Benefits of EOSC Ireland

Contributes to advancement of Ireland’s core policy and strategic goals:

ERA priority 1 on Open Science, NORF

Open Data Alignment

Digital transformation: secure data access, reproducibility, robust data governance

Ensures ongoing competitiveness of Irish research

By enabling data interoperability and removal of data silos, it contributes to addressing priorities of multiple government departments and agencies

See the QuarryLink talk later today !

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Sabatino, R., O'Neill, J., Dowling, L., Burbidge, C., Brown, W., Collins, D., Culhane, A., Doran, M., Farrell, G., Golden, D., Kannan, V., Moran, R. P., Neff, F., Whelan, L., & Wrynn, S. (2025). Implementing the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in Ireland - Version 2 July 2025. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16266119

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From Vision to Service

Paper: Vision

Implementation Plan

The What & Why

The How and Who

CSA

Architecture

MVP

Organisation

Funding Model

The Service

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WP Title

Participants

Cost Category

Effort

Cost

Totals

WP0, project management

HEAnet

Staff

0.5 FTE, 12 months

50K

52K

Travel&events

2K

WP1 Technical architecture

ICHEC and 2 others TBD

Staff

1.2 FTE, 8 months

80K

82.5K

Travel and events

2.5K

WP2 technical trials

ICHEC and 2 others TBD

Staff

1.2 FTE, 9 months

90K

158.5K

equipment

6K

Travel & events

2.5K

Other external services (licenses, consultancy)

60K

WP3 organisational, governance, funding models

TUDublin and 5 others TBD

Staff

1 FTE, 9 months

75K

80K

consultancy

5K

WP4 Planning connection to EOSC Federation

UL and 2 others TBD

Staff

0.6 FTE, 4 months

20K

23K

Travel and events

3K

WP5 Planning for access to services for handling sensitive data

TCD and 2 others TBD

Staff

1 FTE, 4 months

33.3K

35.83K

Travel and events

2.5K

WP6 Community Engagement

HEAnet

Staff

0.2 FTE, 12 months

20K

30.5K

Travel & events

5.5K

Materials & Consumables

5K

Totals

Budget 462,333

Overhead at 25% 115,583

577,19k

Estimated Operational cost over 5 years 9-10M

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M1

M2

M3

M4

M5

M6

M7

M8

M9

M10

M11

M12

WP0 PROJECT MANAGEMENT & COORDINATION

Project Management

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reporting

 

 

Events

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WP1 TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE

Develop technical architecture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deliver technical roadmap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WP2 TECHNICAL TRIALS

Conduct technical trials

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review & report on potential technologies for inclusion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WP3 ESTABLISHING ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

Determine Organisational Structure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Establish funding model

 

 

 

 

Business Case & Recommendation for EOSC Ireland establishment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WP4 TECHNICAL PLANNING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WP5 TECHNICAL PLANNING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WP6 ENGAGEMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WP leads: HEAnet, ICHEC, TUDublin, UL, TCD

Participants: SETU, DCU, UCD, UL, LERO, TUS, DRI, UoG

Advisory: UCC/APC, UL, NDA, UoG

Broader national engagement carried out through WP0 and WP6

Please get in touch if interested !

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Connected initiatives

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SURF Research Cloud PoC

  • To December 2025
  • Researchcloud.heanet.ie

    • Is it a suitable technology/service providing the core functions of EOSC Ireland ?
    • Understand requirements for connecting institutional resources
    • Handling of access policies
    • Handling of credits
    • User experience
  • Provides early input into WP2 of the CSA

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Resources

  • SETU (nextcloud, Openstack)
  • DCU (Openstack)
  • CloudCix (Irish public cloud provider) being discussed
  • AWS, Azure, Oracle provided by SURF
    • >10K Euro of credits

  • Contact me if you’d like to try it out !

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EOSC4ALL

  • Project proposal under Horizon Europe Infra-EOSC
    • Led by GEANT, HEAnet participant, along with other NRENs
    • Development of EOSC node as a service, provided by GEANT based on ResearchCloud from SURF
    • 3 years, starts mid 2026 (if funded).
    • ~8M budget

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Thank you

Any questions?