This document discusses the challenges facing the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and identifies actions that could help address those challenges. Some of the top challenges mentioned are that EOSC is still in the build phase and not yet functioning seamlessly for end users, it is extremely complex due to its multi-stakeholder, multi-country, and multi-disciplinary nature, and its governance was only recently established while its formation occurred organically through projects. Key priority actions identified include extensive testing and iteration based on user feedback, releasing small functionalities incrementally, continuing collaborative and consensus-driven work, and establishing an effective stakeholder forum. The document advocates for putting research community needs at the center and having the EOSC Association and

1. Why is EOSC so hard?
Sarah Jones
#EOSCsymposium2021
EOSC Association & GÉANT
16th June 2021
A personal
view!!!

2. Where are we headed with EOSC?
• A web of FAIR data and services
• Federation of eInfra and research infrastructures
• Environment in which data can be brought together with
services to perform analyses and address societal challenges
Beautiful vision
Sounds simple but is extremely hard in reality!

3. EOSC as a core utility
• Needs to run like water / gas / electric
• Just flows and the user comes to rely on it
• Ignorant to how it works and complexities under hood
But it takes a huge amount of time and effort to reach this stage of maturity!

4. We are still in the build phase
• Means it doesn’t flow yet!
• Lots of info exposed which is irrelevant to end user
• At worst, user tries and fails. May never come back to EOSC

5. EOSC is multi-x
• Multi-stakeholder
• Multi-country
• Multi-lingual
• Multi-discipline
• ….
Every aspect adds another layer of complexity
Takes an incredible amount of time to build consensus and move forward

6. Have placed the cart before the horse
• Messy, organic formation through
a series of projects
• Governance only formed in 2018
and was Expert Group with
advisory role not authority
• Still tbd how EOSC Association
collaborates with core
infrastructure providers

7. To do list
• Test, test, test, test, test
• Iterate in response to user feedback (whether you like the opinion or not)
• Make one small thing work well and release it
• Be incremental – don’t wait on full functionality
• Continue to be collaborative and consensus driven
• Build an effective stakeholder forum and use it!

8. Together we can make it work!
Research
communities
EOSC
Association
Service
providers
• My personal view of the tripartite structure
• The Association and service providers work
together under the hood to create a
platform which works for them!
• Research communities (and their needs)
have to be at the centre
• EOSC Association should run a stakeholder
forum to represent all interests e.g. EC,
Member States, funders, RPOs, industry,
research communities…

9. Panel for today
Rudolf Dimper
European Synchrotron
Radiation Facility (ESRF)
Ingrid Dillo
DANS & FAIRsFAIR
Hilary Hanahoe
Research Data
Alliance (RDA)
Owen Appleton
EGI
Shalini Kurapati
Politecnico di Torino
& Clearbox AI

10. Three questions to them and you!
1. What are the top 3 challenges facing EOSC in your perspective?
2. What are the key priority actions you think we should be focusing on?
3. If you had a magic wand and could change one thing to make EOSC better,
what would that be?

11. Time for your views!
Go to www.menti.com and use the code 1860 4358
Go to www.menti.com
and use the code
1860 4358