Blue-Cloud 2026 Third Federation Workshop
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.
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
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Blue-Cloud consortium meetings - 5 November 2025, 09:00 - 13:00 |
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| 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 | |
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Target audience: Scientific partners, data repositories, RIs representatives Room: Elisabeth Chair: Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Trust-IT Services |
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| 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 | |
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Target audience: Dev & IT EOSC partners Room: Marie-Henriette Chair: Pasquale Pagano, CNR |
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| 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
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Session 1: Blue-Cloud as pilot marine EOSC thematic node in support of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean programme |
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| Time | Session |
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| 09:30 - 10:30 |
Blue-Cloud 2026 as a candidate node for the EOSC Federation Pasquale Pagano, CNR and Blue-Cloud 2026 Coordinator |
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European Strategy on research infrastructures in the framework of the Ocean Pact Nicholas Segebarth, DG RTD |
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EMODnet services in the framework of the EU DTO programme. Conor Delaney, Technical Coordinator & Deputy Head of EMODnet Secretariat |
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Plan for a smart federation between the Virtual Research Environments of EDITO (Datalab) & Blue-Cloud Marina Tonani, Mercator Océan International |
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| 10:30 - 11:00 | Coffee break |
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Keynote |
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11:00 - 11:30 |
Better science through international collaboration for fisheries sustainability in SDG14 Marc Taconet, FAO |
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| 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
Panel discussion |
| 13:00 - 14:30 | Lunch break |
| 14:30 - 15:30 |
Services for Tracking & Forecasting Ocean Health Session moderator: Cyrielle Delvenne, VLIZ
Panel discussion |
| 15:30 - 16:00 | Coffee break |
| 16:00 - 17:30 |
Supporting Marine Spatial Planning with data and services Session moderator: Marine Vernet, IFREMER
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 |
Further updates and speaker details will follow soon.
Curious to learn more about the past Federation Workshop? Read our blog piece!