Blue-Cloud 2026 Third Federation Workshop

Third Federation Workshop
Blue-Cloud Event
5 November 2025 09:00 – 7 November 2025 13:00
Hotel Le Plaza, Adolphe Maxlaan 118/126, Brussels, Belgium

Blue-Cloud partners and collaborators will gather in Brussels from 5 to 7 November 2025 for a three-day series of strategic and technical sessions, anchored by the Third Federation Workshop. The event takes place just after the EOSC Symposium 2025, as Blue-Cloud is supporting the creation of a Marine Thematic Node within the EOSC Federation.

  • On 5 November, in the morning the Blue-Cloud consortium will convene in closed sessions to review progress and coordinate on work package tasks. In the afternoon, the event opens up to a broader audience with two hands-on sessions exploring the EOSC Marine Node core and thematic services and cross-node use cases. These interactive demonstrations will offer participants a closer look at the technical developments powering Blue-Cloud’s federated services.
  • On 6 November, the Third Federation Workshop will bring together project partners, EOSC stakeholders, and Synergy Projects for a full day of in-depth discussion and exchange. The agenda features an opening overview of key takeaways from the EOSC Symposium, followed by a sequence of panel discussions covering core services, the connection between EOSC and EDITO, the practical challenges of building a federated approach, and capacity-building efforts.
  • On 7 November, the Scientific and Technical Committee (STC) – dedicated to STC members – will hold its dedicated session to assess the project’s scientific and technological direction, ensuring alignment with evolving priorities in marine data and EOSC interoperability.

Whether you're involved in implementation, policy, or community engagement, the Third Federation Workshop and surrounding sessions offer a key opportunity to connect, align and shape the future of Blue-Cloud.

Disclaimer: Participation to the General Assembly and T&SC meeting is restricted to members of the Blue-Cloud 2026 consortium.

Register here!

A certificate of attendance valid for career training paths will be awarded to all participants after the Hands on Sessions and the Federation Workshop. 

Draft Programme

5 November 2025, morning

Blue-Cloud consortium meetings - 5 November 2025, 09:00 - 13:00

Time Sessions Room 
09:00 - 13:00 Blue-Cloud Workbenches (WP3) Working Meetings Elisabeth
09:00 - 13:00 Blue-Cloud Virtual Labs (WP4-WP5) Working Meetings Marie-Henriette

 

5 November 2025, afternoon: Blue-Cloud 2026 public sessions

Purpose: provide a technical and scientific, high-level overview of the Blue-Cloud 2026 core, generic and thematic services that will be federated as part of the EOSC Federation under the marine thematic node umbrella. Stimulate questions about the services available, and boost discussions with partners from EOSC related projects and more.

Target audience: the EOSC community attending the EOSC Symposium, including Scientific partners, data repositories, RIs representatives, Dev & IT EOSC partners 

Rooms: Elisabeth and Marie-Henriette

Hands-on breakout session #1: EOSC Marine Node Thematic Services 

Target audience: Scientific partners, data repositories, RIs representatives

Room: Elisabeth

Chair: Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Trust-IT Services

Time Session
14:30 - 15:00

Towards a network of Trusted Digital repositories: opportunities for the Blue Data infrastructures from the EDEN and FIDELIS projects

Jan Meijer (Sikt), Roxanne Wyns (KU LEuven)

15:00 - 16:15

Marine thematic services for EOSC

Overview of Blue-Cloud 2026 Virtual Labs & Workbenches, followed by Short demos presenting the Blue-Cloud Virtual Labs, the Workbenches and their services for the audience gathered for the EOSC Symposium, with insights from the real-case scenario ideas and challenges encountered in the recent Blue-Cloud 2026 hackathon, followed by collaborative discussions.

Nydia Catalina Reyes Suarez (OGS), Francesco Palermo (CMCC), Simona Simoncelli (INGV), Joao Paulo do Nascimento Vitorino (IH), Sebastian Mieruch (AWI), Steven Pint, ULiège, Julien Barde (IRD)

16:15 - 16:30 Q&A & discussion

 

Hands-on breakout session #2: Contribution of the EOSC Ocean & Waters Node to core & generic EOSC Federated service

Target audience: Dev & IT EOSC partners

Room: Marie-Henriette

Chair: Pasquale Pagano, CNR

14:30 - 14:50

Blue-Cloud 2026 core & generic services 

Guided by the EOSC EU Node reference architecture and the EOSC Federation Handbook, the EOSC Ocean & Waters Node implements and evolves a robust set of core services, integrating them to those pioneered by the EOSC EU Node. This session will provide hands-on presentations on Blue-Cloud 2026 core and generic services such as the Resource Catalogue and Registry, the User Space (Gateway), the Application Workflow Management, Order Management & the Interactive Computing and Collaborative Platforms

Massimiliano Assante, CNR-ISTI

14:50 - 15:10

The Beacon data lake technology

Robin Kooyman (MARIS)

15:10 - 15:40

Cross-Node use case: Modelling the Ocean biological carbon sequestration: Demonstration the use of core capabilities & discussion

with Jonathan Tedds (ELIXIR-EUROPE and EOSC United) and Stéphane Pésant (EMBL-EBI)

15:40 - 16:00

Cross-Node collaboration: the Polish EOSC Node

with Marcin Wichorowski, Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences

16:00 - 16:20

Cross-Node collaboration: the Data Terra EOSC Node 

with Alessandro Rizzo, IRD, and Erwan Bodere, Ifremer

16:20 - 16:30 Q&A & discussion
16:30 - 17:00 Coffee break

 

5 November 2025, evening: Blue-Cloud General Assembly - Closed meeting

Time Sessions Room
17:00 - 18:00 General Assembly Marie-Henriette

 


6 November 2025, full day: Federation Workshop 

Purpose: Provide an overview of the Blue-Cloud 2026 services, data products, approach and result so far. Set the scene of the EOSC and EDITO programmes and their objectives. Provide visibility to third party initiatives to stimulate collaboration.

Target audience: the European marine Research community: Blue Data Infrastructures contributing to the  Blue-Cloud service offer, and managers, decision makers, service and data providers at other Research Infrastructures (RIs), projects and initiatives working on marine, environmental and climate related topics 

Room: Adolphe Max

Chair: Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Trust-IT Services

Session 1: Blue-Cloud as pilot marine EOSC thematic node in support of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean programme

Time Session
09:30 - 10:30

Blue-Cloud 2026 as a candidate node for the EOSC Federation

Pasquale Pagano, CNR and Blue-Cloud 2026 Coordinator

European Strategy on research infrastructures in the framework of the Ocean Pact

Nicholas Segebarth, DG RTD

EMODnet services in the framework of the EU DTO programme. 

Conor Delaney, Technical Coordinator & Deputy Head of EMODnet Secretariat

Plan for a smart federation between the Virtual Research Environments of EDITO (Datalab) & Blue-Cloud

Marina Tonani, Mercator Océan International

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break

 

Keynote

11:00 - 11:30

Better science through international collaboration for fisheries sustainability in SDG14

Marc Taconet, FAO

 

Session 2: Services, tools and approaches for Open Science Federated services serving Mission Ocean objectives
Time Session
11:30 - 13:00

Services for mapping & understanding marine ecosystems and species

Session moderator: Julia Vera, SSBE 

  • The Global Fisheries Atlas. Julien Barde (IRD)
  • Workbench eutrophication updates and its key functionalities. Nydia Catalina Reyes Suarez, Alessandra Giorgetti (OGS)
  • Physics workbench for temperature & salinity. Simona Simoncelli (INGV)
  • TwinTrack Digital Twin prototype for aquatic animal movement in the North Sea. Samuel Fooks (VLIZ)
  • A workflow for mapping and monitoring seagrass meadows using low-cost drones and open-source software. Valentina Costa (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn and BIODT project)
  • Ecosystem Workbench for plankton biodiversity & biomass. Jean-Olivier Irisson (SU) / Matthias Muennich (ETHZ)

Panel discussion

13:00 - 14:30 Lunch break
14:30 - 15:30

Services for Tracking & Forecasting Ocean Health

Session moderator: Cyrielle Delvenne, VLIZ

  • Integrated ocean surface current maps by merging data from multiple sources. Abel Dechenne, ULiège
  • Marine Environmental Indicators.  Francesco Palermo (CMCC)
  • BioGeoSea: Improving observation, validation, and modelling of biogeochemical Essential Ocean Variables (BGC EOVs). Dina Eparkhina (EUROGOOS)
  • Carbon-Plankton Dynamics. Steven Pint (VLIZ)

Panel discussion

15:30 - 16:00 Coffee break
16:00 - 17:30

Supporting Marine Spatial Planning with data and services

Session moderatorMarine Vernet, IFREMER

  • Transboundary Transport & Connectivity, Extreme Events and Ocean Glider services from the ICOOE VLab. Joao Paulo do Nascimento Vitorino, Vânia Lima (IH)
  • Italian Integrated Ocean Observing System: how to integrate multi-source digital data and their near real time processing for management phases. Mauro Caccavale, CNR-ISMAR
  • Participatory tools and services for supporting sustainable ocean management and planning. Alessandro Sarretta, CNR
  • The HUB Ocean Ocean Data Platform. Laurence Janssens, HUB Ocean

Panel discussion

17:30 - 18:00

Conclusions

Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Trust-IT Services

 


7 November 2025, morning: Technical & Scientific committee closed meeting 

Room: Adolphe Max

Time Sessions Partner
09:00 - 09:40 Data Discovery & Access Service upgrading and expanding
09:00 - 09:10 Introduction MARIS
09:10 - 09:25 Progress DD&AS  interacting with BDIs MARIS
09:25 - 09:40 Progress with semantic analyser and mappings NOC-BODC
09:40 - 11:15 Progress reports by selected BDIs about contents improvements and semantic support
09:40 - 09:55 EuroArgo IFREMER
09:55 - 10:10 Elixir-ENA + MGnify EMBL-EBI
10:10 - 10:25 EcoTaxa SU
10:25 - 10:40 EMSO EMSO
10:50 - 10:55 SIOS SIOS
10:55 - 11:15 Coffee Break
11:15 - 12:00 Subsetting and Data lakes development progress
11:15 - 11:30 Beacon data lakes and Beacon studio developments MARIS
11:30 - 11:45 WebODV developments AWI
11:45 - 12:00 EDITO datalake VLIZ
12:00 - 13:00 Tuning between WP3 - WP4 with WP2 - WP5 and Closure
12:00 - 12:55 Feedback and needs WorkBenches and Vlabs - open discussion All participants
12:55 - 13:00 Closing of the Meeting MARIS

Register here!

Further updates and speaker details will follow soon. 

Curious to learn more about the past Federation Workshop? Read our blog piece!