Strategic Requirements

European Cloud Initiative Communication

On the 19^th^ April 2016, the European Commission published a communication on the “European Cloud Initiative - Building a competitive data and knowledge economy in Europe”¹. This document outlined the vision of the European Open Science Cloud as:

“The European Open Science Cloud aims to give Europe a global lead in scientific data infrastructures, to ensure that European scientists reap the full benefits of data-driven science. Practically, it will offer 1.7 million European researchers and 70 million professionals in science and technology a virtual environment with free at the point of use, open and seamless services for storage, management, analysis and re-use of research data, across borders and scientific disciplines. Its development will be driven by the scientific community, who are the most advanced users and the largest producers of science in the world. The European Open Science Cloud will be also open for education and training purposes in higher education and, over time, to government and business users as the technologies developed will be promoted for wider application. “

The Communication gives the following requirement for the EOSC Governance structure:

“Create a fit-for-purpose pan-European governance structure to federate scientific data infrastructures and overcome fragmentation. The institutional set-up will oversee long-term funding, sustainability, data preservation and stewardship. It will build on existing structures to involve scientific users, research funders and implementers”.

First HLEG Report

The second key policy document for the European Open Science Cloud is the first High Level Expert Group report published on the 11^th^ October 2016². This makes various recommendations on policy, governance, and implementation to take immediate action on the EOSC in close concert with Member States, building on existing capacity and expertise. Its recommendations on governance are as follows:

1. Aim at the lightest possible, internationally effective governance.

   Given the urgency and the number and variety of stakeholders and participants required to realise the EOSC, a tightly governed, new infrastructure built ‘somewhere’ is not the right model for the EOSC to be a success. Instead a more inclusive, flexible, transparent and less centralised approach is required, one that also enables effective global collaboration. The Commission needs to establish a lightweight, sustainable and collaborative governance model for the EOSC for all players to contribute.

2. Guidance only where guidance is due.

   While we advocate lightweight governance, we need a degree of regulation. For instance, the harmonisation of the current ‘standards jungle’ needs to be actively coordinated. With no regulation, some major players, public and private, may claim an unjust and counterproductive share in the EOSC. The EOSC will have a myriad of small and very large players, as is the case in the current internet, but it should be perceived by regulators and stockholders alike as a “commons” where citizens, researchers and innovators need to use each other’s data and tools in a trusted affordable and sustainable environment. Europe should take a lead in this due guidance element of the Internet of FAIR Data and Services.

3. Define Rules of Participation³ for service provision in the EOSC.

   To support wide participation, innovation and sustainability the EOSC needs to be open to all players, public and private, European and non-European and the development of the desired expert infrastructure will be guided and governed by a minimal set of rigorously applied and enforced protocols and developed by parties that endorse so called Rules of Participation (RoP) that specify the conditions under which stakeholders participate. These RoP can be used to brand providers in the EOSC as trustworthy and compliant with the RoP, comparable to Conformant Cloud Providers in the USA. It should be clear that non-EOSC approved players are free to explore any role in the Open Science ecosystem they wish, even if they do not adhere to the RoP. They will just not be able to brand their services as EOSC approved/certified.

4. Federate the gems (and amplify good practice).

   Based on the consensus that most foundational building blocks of the Internet of FAIR data and Services are operational somewhere, but that they operate in silos per domain, geographical region and funding scheme, we recommend that early and strong action is taken to federate these gems. Optimal engagement is required of the e-infrastructure communities, the ESFRI communities and other disciplinary groups and institutes. Several of these cross-ESFRI building blocks begin to operate in individual Member States. Simultaneously, the wealth of small and large industrial players in Europe should be engaged. All partners and stakeholders that adhere to standards and sign off on the Rules of Participation (RoP) should be eligible.

Open Science Policy Platform

In May 2017, the Open Science Policy Platform⁴ adopted a “Report on the governance and financial schemes for the European Open Science Cloud” from its working group on the EOSC⁵. This report was submitted to the EU Competitiveness Council. It recommends that:

1. The EOSC should rely on a multi-level and multi-stakeholder governance that ensures a representation for the main stakeholder categories and disciplines, integrating both the national and European levels of authority.

2. Facilitate access to the EOSC across borders and disciplines by carefully analysing all aspects of interoperability (technical, semantic, organisational, legal and policy) and translate them into a common model and rules of participation.

3. European countries and EC should ensure long-term funding of the services that are needed to enable the integration of and access to the resources that can be federated in the EOSC.

4. Different and innovative funding schemes should be investigated to support users to consume services from EOSC-certified providers that are approved based on a commonly-agreed European certification scheme.

5. Kick-off the EOSC ecosystem with enough coordinated financial support from a sufficiently large set of European countries and the EC.

6. Raise awareness and communicate benefits of the EOSC among decision makers, research and education bodies, private sector, industrial and citizen organisations; share best practices and use-cases to highlight the potential and results of the EOSC.

7. Develop Open Science and data skills among all the key stakeholder categories.

8. Ensure to align and develop ethical rules in data management, storage and analytics that are recognized by all stakeholders in the EOSC.

EOSC Declaration

The EOSC Declaration, published by the EC on 24/10/17 is an outcome of the EOSC Summit of 12th June 2017 that was attended by eighty key stakeholders. The EOSC Declaration sets out key principles on Data Culture and FAIR Data; Research Data Architectures and Services; and Governance and Funding⁶. The key principles for governance are:

1. Governance model - A long-term, sustainable research infrastructure in Europe requires a strong and flexible governance model based on trust and increasing mutuality. As interdisciplinarity is one of the main objectives of the EOSC, the governance model should be based on representability, proportionality, accountability, inclusiveness and transparency.

2. Governance framework - The EOSC governance framework will be co-designed, stakeholder driven and composed of three main layers: 1) institutional, including EU Member States and European Commission 2) operational, including a governance board and relevant working committees (e.g. thematic and functional) and 3) advisory, including a stakeholder forum.

3. Governance board - A governance board will coordinate the efforts of stakeholders endorsing the EOSC Declaration, with the broad mandate to reach practical agreements for the implementation of an EOSC Roadmap by 2020. The board will have an advisory role and an implementing role of the decisions by Member States and European Commission concerning the programming, financing and towards the setting up of a long-term governance and business model for the EOSC. It will make best use of the outcomes of past and current projects (e.g. EOSCpilot, eInfraCentral and EOSC-hub) and independent expert advice and studies.

4. Coordination structure - A coordination structure, funded by Horizon 2020, will help the governance board to manage the implementation, according to agreed rules and methods of stakeholder participation. The structure and its participating entities should be accountable for the responsibilities assumed, based on an objective assessment of their level of readiness in delivering the EOSC main functionalities.

5. Global aspects - The EOSC will be European and open to the world, reaching out over time to relevant global research partners. It will increase the global value of open research data and support stakeholder engagement, including researchers and citizens. It will gradually widen the initiative to federated network of infrastructures and nodes from global research partners. The EOSC Stakeholder Forum will have an important role in this sense.

EC Staff Working Document

The European Commission’s staff working document “Implementation Roadmap for the European Open Science Cloud”⁷ outlines an interim governance structure for the initial implementation phase of the EOSC (see Figure 4). It is envisaged that this can transition to the framework described in this document. This transition is covered later in the document.

Figure 4 - Staff Working Document - Governance Structure

Second HLEG Report

The report of the Second High Level Expert Group on the Open Science Cloud (Prompting an EOSC in Practice)⁸ concluded that the provision of resources to support the EOSC will take place in a very heterogeneous landscape of e-infrastructures and service providers, with dispersed users at best aggregated around disciplinary poles and national infrastructures. Addressing this challenge requires the definition of a smallest common denominator, i.e. the Minimum Viable Ecosystem of the EOSC.

Figure 5 - 2nd HLEG Report - Governance Overview

As part of that Minimum Viable Ecosystem, the report supported a Governance structure for the initial implementation of the EOSC (illustrated in Figure 5) very much along the lines advocated in the EC Staff Working Document.