The EOSC Tripartite Governance has announced the organisations invited to the kick-off workshop of the EOSC Federation, marking the start of its build-up phase. Among those selected is CNR (Blue-Cloud 2026), highlighting the significance of the Blue-Cloud initiative in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
The selection process involved narrowing down 121 responses from an open call for Expressions of Interest in summer 2024. The EOSC Tripartite Governance, which includes representatives from the EOSC Association, the European Commission, and Member States and Associated Countries, considered factors such as resource maturity and diversity, inclusivity and geographical representation, and organisational and technical readiness to contribute to the Federation’s build-up.
CNR (Blue-Cloud 2026) is among a diverse group of organisations representing potential European, national, and thematic Nodes distributed across the continent. The selected organisations will participate in a kick-off workshop in Brussels to co-develop the EOSC Federation’s work plan and establish inter-Node groups to address specific issues. After committing to join the build-up phase, these organisations will form the first Candidate EOSC Nodes.
The build-up of the EOSC Federation will be guided by several core principles:
- Community-driven goals
- A flexible and evolutive approach
- Co-creation of key elements
- Community-wide engagement, information sharing, and consultation
A webinar and info-share for all organisations that completed the first wave Expression of Interest will be held in late March, with a subsequent wave of Candidate EOSC Nodes planned for summer 2025. The second-wave Candidate Nodes will benefit from the experiences of the first wave.
Read more on the EOSC's website
CNR (Blue-Cloud 2026) is among the organisations now recognised as Candidate EOSC Nodes, and will take part in the next EOSC Federation Build-Up Group meeting in Kraków on 17–18 June 2025. The in-person event, hosted by the National Science Centre Poland (NCN), will provide a space to exchange updates, agree on working methods, and identify scientific and infrastructure use cases to support the early stages of the EOSC Federation.
Pasquale Pagano, Scientific Coordinator of Blue-Cloud 2026, will attend the meeting on behalf of CNR.
This initiative is a step towards making the marine node operational in the near future, contributing to the wider effort of deploying a network of interconnected data repositories and services for FAIR and cross-disciplinary research in Europe.
