RDA and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Association

In July 2020, the legal entity for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) – the EOSC Association – was set up as an AISBL in Belgium. The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is delighted to support this important initiative. Given the many similarities in the two organisations, including the not for profit, community based and foundational values of openness and transparency, over the past year, RDA has been happy to dedicate effort to consult on the statutes of the Association and form part of the task force to assist in writing the Bylaws. Hilary Hanahoe, RDA Secretary General and Ingrid Dillo, RDA Council Co-chair, were involved in the definition of the Financial articles of the Bylaws.

This week sees a big milestone in the EOSC Association journey, with the first General Assembly (GA) taking place on Thursday 17 December. In addition to the presentation of the EOSC Partnership Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), the GA will be electing the President and eight Directors of the EOSC Association Board. Of the thirteen candidates standing for election, RDA is pleased to note that exactly eight of them are RDA members.

Membership of RDA is a voluntary, free activity, and requires dedication, time and commitment on the part of the member. RDA is very lucky to have over 6,000 members from the European geographical area and is delighted to support the candidacy of these  eight members to the EOSC Association Board.

In a recent press release, RDA outlined how it is concretely supporting EOSC through its activities in Europe and beyond over the coming months.

For those, less familiar with the EOSC, it aims to become Europe’s trusted virtual environment for 1.7 million European researchers and 70 million professionals in science, technology, the humanities and social sciences to store, manage, analyze and re-use data for research, innovation and educational purposes, as well as to support EU science in its global leading role. As its vision says: “to give Europe a global lead in scientific data infrastructures and to ensure that European scientists reap the full benefits of data-driven science.” EOSC reinforces the European Union’s Open Science, Open Innovation and Open to the world policies.

For more information on EOSC, visit the European Commission web site

For more information on the Value of RDA to EOSC visit this link

Published Monday 14 December 2020