News

The Greek National Tripartite Event that took place on the 6th of October in Athens has been a major gathering of the EOSC “ecosystem” in the country. The event was co organized by “Athena” Research Center and the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET S.A.)

The hybrid event was by invitation only. About 150 participants joined online and about 40 were present in the room, giving the opprtunity to the national Open Science community to be represented in its various roles: researchers, research funding organisations, research infrastructures, technology advancement and innovation organisations, government officials, etc.

The high-level opening session was dedicated to two out of the three parties of the collaboration, namely the government and the EC. Christos Dimas, Deputy Minister for Research and Technology, and Antonis Stasis, General Director at the General Secretariat of Digital Governance and Simplification of Procedures of the Ministry of Digital Governance, addressed the audience and both highlighted the importance of EOSC for the Greek research and innovation communities, and confirmed their commitment in supporting the tripartite collaboration.

Next, Ilaria Nardello on behalf of the EOSC-Association and Yannis Ioannidis, the Greek Steering Board representative, presented the EOSC-Association priorities and the EOSC efforts in Greece respectively. In the same session Maria Christoula, Head of International Scientific and Technological Cooperation at GSRI provided data and information in relation to the National OS Strategy and EOSC participation, while Antonis Stasis gave an overview of the related priorities of the Digital Transformation Strategy of Greece 2021-2025 and the core elements of the strategy regarding Open Science. The session closed with the presentation of the Hellenic Open Science Initiative (HOSI) by the chair of the Organising Committee, Spyros Athanasiou.

The biggest part of the day had been, however, reserved for the interactive discussion with and among the participants. Key points in this very vivid exchange have been issues such as: what are the Greek OS actors’ expectations towards EOSC, what do federation and federated RIsmean under EOSC and how this can be achieved, what are the priorities for a secure and trustworthy data sharing, what are the digital skills needed for EOSC and how to upskill researchers and OS actors. A major part of the discussion was dedicated to the need for more coordinated efforts in the country, but also at European level and how to achieve this. In this direction, the remarks by the HOSI members, the EOSC projects representatives and the RIs representatives are very promising towards further strengthening the open science and EOSC capacity in the country.