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Blue-Cloud Policy Dialogue: Co-creating the Roadmap to 2030

Blue-Cloud Event
20 November 2020 10:00–11:30
Online

Information & Policy Dialogue Session

Information exchange with European Commission officials towards building the vision and priorities for the Blue-Cloud Roadmap to 2030

About Blue-Cloud

The Blue-Cloud Project is the component of ‘The Future of Seas and Oceans Flagship Initiative’ that will demonstrate the potential of web-based open science in the domain of ocean sustainability. Blue-Cloud will pilot a cyber platform that will deliver innovative data discovery and access, together with Virtual Research Environments for conducting marine and maritime-related research, modelling and wider analyses, utilising shared computing and analytical services. This will be achieved through federation of existing blue data infrastructures (such as Copernicus Marine Services, EMODnet, ELIXIR-ENA, Euro-Argo, Argo GDAC, EuroBioImaging, EcoTaxa, EurOBIS, ICOS-Marine and SeaDataNet) and einfrastructures (such as WEkEO, D4Science and EUDAT) in Europe, committed to the project, to enhance interoperability and offer users from marine research, the blue economy, and wider stakeholders more streamlined and innovative services.

The project will showcase five Blue-Cloud Demonstrators as Virtual Labs co-designed with top-level marine researchers to advance applications that are specific for oceans and seas, but also potentially expanded to fresh water bodies. The Blue-Cloud Demonstrators will be instrumental in showing the benefits of web-based science and how complex challenges can be analysed and solved by researchers combining multi-disciplinary data and data products and algorithms, supported by a common collaborative environment and powerful computing resources.

To guide the long-term development of this ambitious initiative, the project Partners will be producing the Blue-Cloud Strategic Roadmap to 2030, as a stakeholder driven, co-created vision towards advancing the pilot Blue-Cloud platform into a leading and multi-functional blue knowledge system for the wider marine community in Europe and beyond, as a marine thematic component of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and as a potential component of a future Digital Twin for the Ocean.

Purpose and main take-aways of the session

As part of the process towards building the Blue-Cloud Strategic Roadmap to 2030, the Blue-Cloud consortium has organized an Information & Policy Dialogue Session with relevant representatives across different Directorate Generals (DGs) of the European Commission (DG RTD, DG GROW, DG DEFIS, DG MARE DG CONNECT and any other relevant DGs). The purpose of the session is to start a dialogue on how the development of the Blue-Cloud can contribute to meet relevant EU policy priorities by supporting marine research, environment, economy, policy making, and decisioning in an innovative manner. The visions, priorities and contributions gathered during the meeting will feed into the production of the first draft release of the Blue-Cloud Roadmap 2030, to be issued by March 2021 for consultation.

Participants will:

  • Gain insight into the “Blue-Cloud” project and its current status.
  • Learn about synergies activated with other EU funded initiatives interested in implementing and exploiting the Blue-Cloud’s key assets.
  • Exchange on how the Blue-Cloud may contribute to policy priorities across the different DGs and on the (short, medium, long term) objectives that should be pursued by the Blue-Cloud for the successful delivery of such contributions.

Agenda

  • 10:00 - Welcome and objectives
  • 10:15 - Session 1: Introduction to the Blue-Cloud project
    • Overview of objectives, activities and assets of the Blue-Cloud project and synergies activated with other initiatives.
      Contributions by: Francesca Spagnoli (Blue-Cloud Project Coordinator; Trust-IT Services), Dick Schaap (Blue-Cloud Technical Coordinator, MARIS)
      Q&A session
  • 10:35 - Session 2: The Blue-Cloud Roadmap to 2030. Building policy priorities and expectations of the European Commission into the development of the Blue-Cloud
    • Overview of the Blue-Cloud’s stakeholder engagement process towards cocreating the Blue-Cloud Roadmap to 2030 and initial perspectives on the first online consultation to the Blue-Cloud community.
      Contributions by: Kate Larkin & Julia Vera (Seascape Belgium)
    • Structured dialogue with participating DG representatives to identify and discuss:
      • The vision for the development and long-term sustainability of the Blue-Cloud and how far it should build into the Digital Twin Ocean; and
      • The policy priorities of the different DGs and how the Blue-Cloud can contribute to meeting their “user needs” in support of their objectives in the short, medium and long term.
        Discussion facilitated by Seascape Belgium
  • 11:25 - Wrap up and next steps
  • 11:30 - Close