EOSC Association
As a member of the EOSC Association, SND can influence the development of the digital collaboration portal European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). This platform is designated to bring European research infrastructures together, making it easier to find and work with research data.
What is the EOSC Association?
In 2015, the European Commission initiated the process of creating the digital collaboration platform European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The purpose of EOSC is to bring together European research infrastructures to enable access to data from all scientific disciplines. Services and tools on the platform will make it easier for researchers to manage, analyse, store, and reuse research data.
The foundation for EOSC was created by several large collaborative projects. The first phase of building the organization was completed in 2020, and the EOSC Association was established in July 2020, with a purpose to drive the work to design and deploy a “European Research Data Commons”. The four founding members (GÉANT, CESAER, CSIC, and GARR) were later that year joined by more organizations. At the beginning of 2026, the EOSC Association had 156 members and 97 observers. Members include research-funding organizations, data service providers (such as SND), and representatives from the research community.
The role of SND in the EOSC Association
In the initial phase of the EOSC development, SND mainly took part in two projects: EOSC-Nordic and SSHOC (Social Sciences and Humanities Open Cloud).
University of Gothenburg, represented by SND, was granted membership in the EOSC Association in autumn 2020, as a “Service provider for research”. As a member, SND can better influence the development of EOSC, in the Association as well as in various projects. Another ten Swedish organizations are members: among them the eight other member universities in the SND Consortium, in the “Research-performing organisation” category, as well as the Swedish Research Council, as Mandated organisation, in the “Research-funding organisation” category. The Swedish EOSC members have come together in a council, where EOSC questions are prepared and discussed.
Benefits to the research community
EOSC contributes to the creation of a global research data community where researchers gain access to FAIR data and services that facilitate research. One of the main intentions is to make it easier to find, share, and reuse research results such as data, models, simulations, and methods, within as well as between research disciplines.
Within the EOSC collaboration, researchers and other stakeholders, for example, public agencies and companies, will be offered advanced infrastructures for managing and storing data, solutions for quickly transporting large quantities of data, and access to powerful, high-performance computers for processing data.
The Swedish organizations’ membership in EOSC also makes it possible to advance specific Nordic requirements in research data management, such as how to manage personal data and personal identity numbers.