News

The Open Science Agora consortium, led by Athena Research Center, with EGI Foundation, OpenAIRE AMKE and Netcompany Intrasoft SA as key partners, are the recipients of the European Commission's DG CNECT public procurement tender, "Managed Services for the European Open Science Cloud Platform (EOSC) - LOT1" to build, deploy and operate the Core Federation Services of the EOSC EU Node.  The EOSC EU Node is expected to provide access to a diverse portfolio of FAIR data and professional-quality interoperable services across various domains, including data handling, computing, processing, analysis, and storage.

We are happy to announce that the Open Science Agora Consortium, led by Athena Research and Innovation Center, and with EGI Foundation, OpenAIRE AMKE, and Netcompany  Intrasoft SA as key partners, has been selected by the European Commission DG-CNECT to build, deploy and operate the Core Federation Services of the EOSC EU Node.

The 36-month project will effectively offer six (6) Managed Services:

1. Web Portal, Training Platform (LMS) accompanied by a User Personal Workspace that allows researchers to customise for their own dedicated use.

2. Registries for services, tools, data sources with PIDs resolution, all linked and accessible through a Metadata Knowledge Graph.

3. Application Workflow Management and Tools Market to assist researchers in running their services using resources directly provided by the EU EOSC Node. 

4. Identity Management (Single-Sign-On) for the EOSC Node and support for Federated Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure (AAI).

5. Monitoring and Accounting Systems, fit to accommodate emerging business models.

6. Service Management System comprising components for helpdesk, policy compliance, assessment and assurance framework, and security coordination.

To provide an all-encompassing solution to the European research community, the Open Science Agora Consortium will closely collaborate with the winners of the complementary Lots (Lot 2 - Exchange Infrastructure Services for the EOSC EU Node, and Lot 3 - Exchange Application Services for the EOSC EU Node) to ensure all services provided from them are seamlessly accessed by all users through the EOSC portal.

The strength of the Open Science Agora Consortium lies in the experience of its partners, who are well embedded in the EOSC ecosystem both at the EU and national levels, having been involved in building infrastructures and providing EC professional services for more than 15 years. Recognising the duty to provide the EU EOSC Node, which could serve as a model for the EOSC ecosystem, all partners and subcontractors acknowledge their responsibility to use, modify, reassess, and reposition the existing EOSC technology accordingly. This will guarantee that the vision of EOSC is materialised in practice for the millions of scientists in the EU.

“We are thrilled to have won this bid as we are firm believers in providing EU scientists and researchers with an EOSC that is inclusive, cutting-edge, high-quality, and reliable. It is clear to us that the EOSC EU Node will play a pivotal role in EOSC's success by serving as an example of key developments. As we transition into a new stage of services using a competitive process, we remain unwavering in our dedication to providing the resources to develop, improve, connect, and ensure the effectiveness of the emerging EOSC Node”. - Yannis Ioannidis, Athena Research Center, project coordinator

Athena Research Center covers all ICT domains and it has been a key actor in a wide range of activities around the development of Open Science and Open Access in Europe, and a leader in the national scene. We believe that these are factors for accelerating research and boosting technology transfer! We are now proud to coordinate this project that will bring EOSC closer to full and successful implementation for the benefit of the EU scientific and innovation world. - Ioannis Emiris, Athena Research Center General Director and President of the BoD

Subcontractors: GÉANT Association, Greek Research & Technology Network (GRNET S.A.), and Scientific Compute and Competence Centre of University of Göttingen and the Max Planck Society (GWDG mbH).