Sweden’s application to establish a Swedish national node in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) has been approved. This means that Sweden is one of 14 new candidate nodes in the continued development of the EOSC Federation.
The EOSC Federation is a joint European initiative to connect research data, infrastructures, and services. The aim is to make it easier for researchers to find, share, and use data and tools across national and disciplinary boundaries. The decision to invite 14 new candidate nodes to join the EOSC Federation marks an important step towards strengthening Europe’s common research infrastructure and improving access to interoperable research data and services.
A Swedish contribution to a European ecosystem
The Swedish national EOSC node is coordinated by the Swedish Research Council and is based on collaboration between several key actors, including SciLifeLab, Swedish National Data Service (SND), and Sunet, which is part of the Swedish Research Council. Together, these organizations contribute expertise, services, and infrastructures that enable the integration of Swedish research resources into EOSC.
Lina Andrén is the Swedish Research Council’s coordinator for the Swedish national node. She says that while extensive work remains to realize the EOSC vision, Sweden is well equipped for the task:
“Establishing the Swedish national EOSC node will be an excellent opportunity for Sweden to help develop the European system, at the same time as we create collaborations and strengthen coordination at national level. It is fantastic to have expertise from both SND and SciLifeLab with us from the very beginning of this journey!”
SND’s role in the Swedish national EOSC node
SND contributes expertise in research data management, metadata, and making research data accessible. As a national competence centre, SND has an important role in:
- supporting researchers in describing and sharing data in accordance with the FAIR principles;
- contributing to the development of metadata and catalogue services, including Researchdata.se, and
- strengthening user support.
“EOSC is not only about technology, it’s about creating a coherent European ecosystem for research and research data. Here we can see that SND, through both Researchdata.se and our national network, plays an important role in strengthening access, collaboration, and long-term reusability of research data,” says Eva Stensköld, director of SND.
Sweden enters EOSC’s development phase
As a candidate node, Sweden now enters EOSC’s development phase. Over the coming years, the focus will be on:
- connecting Swedish services and infrastructures
- developing interoperability with the rest of Europe
- creating concrete research use cases.
The aim is to establish a sustainable Swedish national node that contributes to an open and integrated European research landscape.
A recording from our webinar in March, focusing on the latest news from EOSC and what’s happening in Sweden. Note that the seminar was held in Swedish.
From EOSC: EOSC Federation scales up with endorsement of 14 new candidate nodes.