Building the Future of Open Science: Insights from the 2025 EOSC Winter School

Redacción HC
01/04/2025

The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) represents one of the most ambitious scientific infrastructure initiatives of our time. Envisioned as a federated ecosystem for open research in Europe, the EOSC aims to provide seamless access to scientific data, computing resources, and services for researchers across the continent. But realizing this vision requires more than just technology — it demands coordination, governance, and community-wide collaboration. That is precisely where the EOSC Winter School 2025 comes in.

Held under the auspices of the EOSC Association (EOSC-A) and supported by Horizon Europe’s EOSC Focus project, the Winter School served as a convergence point for experts, project leaders, and policy stakeholders. Their goal? To move beyond fragmented efforts and work toward a unified EOSC that functions as a coherent, interoperable federation — not just a collection of disconnected projects.

Why Coordination Matters: The Core Challenge of EOSC

The fundamental problem addressed by the Winter School was the lack of alignment among the myriad actors contributing to EOSC. While numerous working groups and initiatives operate under the EOSC umbrella, their efforts can sometimes diverge or overlap without adequate communication. This fragmentation threatens the EOSC’s potential to accelerate science, democratize access to data, and optimize the use of Europe’s research infrastructure.

As summarized in the official event report, available via Zenodo, the primary research question guiding the school was:

How can key actors align their efforts to produce actionable recommendations that enable a fully federated, functional, and impactful EOSC?

Methodology: A School Designed for Structured Collaboration

Rather than a traditional academic conference, the EOSC Winter School adopted a collaborative "school" format tailored to structured dialogue. The curriculum centered around the four strategic pillars outlined in the EOSC Association’s Multi-Annual Roadmap 2026–2027, encompassing governance, infrastructure, engagement, and innovation.

Participants worked in seven thematic groups, each focused on specific challenges and opportunities. These included representatives from EOSC-A Working Groups, Horizon Europe projects, and expert panels. The primary "data" was the collective knowledge and discussion outcomes of these groups. Through plenary sessions, participants validated and refined their ideas, culminating in a set of consensus-based recommendations intended to inform EOSC’s practical implementation.

This bottom-up methodology emphasized inclusiveness and structured co-creation, highlighting how collaborative processes can guide the development of distributed research infrastructures.

Key Findings: Actionable Recommendations for a Federated EOSC

Unlike conventional research reports, the core outcomes of the Winter School are not datasets or statistical analyses, but rather a co-produced roadmap of recommendations. These serve as strategic inputs for EOSC’s Groups of Experts in Areas of Opportunity and are intended to shape both immediate actions and long-term governance models.

Among the notable takeaways:

• Reinforce cross-project integration to reduce duplication and enhance interoperability.
• Develop clear frameworks for data sharing and service federation across national and institutional boundaries.
• Create mechanisms for continuous community input, especially from underrepresented regions or disciplines.
• Build on lessons from past schools to iterate and improve EOSC coordination strategies.

By emphasizing co-creation and structured dialogue, the School has shown that meaningful collaboration can emerge even from a highly complex landscape of stakeholders.

From Recommendations to Impact: Why It Matters

The EOSC Winter School 2025 is more than an academic exercise — it’s a strategic intervention aimed at shaping Europe’s scientific future. The practical implications of the recommendations are substantial:

• For Public Policy: They offer a blueprint for national and EU-level decision-makers to enhance scientific collaboration, streamline infrastructure funding, and ensure alignment with broader digital strategies.
• For Scientific Progress: A well-functioning EOSC enables faster and more reproducible research, especially in high-stakes areas like climate change, pandemics, and artificial intelligence.
• For Society at Large: By improving access to scientific data and tools, EOSC supports transparency, equity, and innovation. As the report notes, a unified EOSC "accelerates the pace of discovery in critical domains such as health, environment, energy, and AI."

Lessons for Other Regions: Inspiration Beyond Europe

Although designed for the European research context, the EOSC Winter School offers valuable insights for other regions, including Latin America. The report can serve as a blueprint for similar initiatives seeking to foster data sharing and research coordination across national borders. Key takeaways include:

• The power of dialogue-centered formats like schools and workshops.
• The importance of multilevel engagement — from institutional to continental.
• The need for community ownership in infrastructure governance.

Conclusion: Building the EOSC Together

The 2025 EOSC Winter School proves that alignment, while complex, is achievable through structured dialogue and community engagement. The recommendations distilled from the School are already influencing policy and practice within the EOSC ecosystem — pushing Europe one step closer to a fully functional Open Science federation.

As the EOSC continues to evolve, future editions of the Winter School will play a crucial role in ensuring that the community moves forward together, strategically, and transparently.

Topics of interest

Open Access