ESFRI Roadmap 2016 Launched. With new projects and landmarks Page 21

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1 E - I N F R A S T R U C T U R E R E F L E C T I O N G R O U P e-irg Newsletter Paving the way towards a general purpose European e-infrastructure Newsletter Highlights from the delegates meetings Since the publishing of the previous edition of this Newsletter, there were two delegates meetings in Luxembourg. Page 4 Interview Azerbaijan einfrastructure Interview with the eirg & ESFRI Chairs Page 9 Progress e-infrastructure Commons ESFRI Roadmap 2016 Launched is developing fast thanks to project partnership with European Community Page 12 With new projects and landmarks Page 21 New e-irg Bylaws have been adopted Page 3 e-irg is developing its new Roadmap which will include a landscape analysis and also the way to the future. It builds on top of the e-infrastructure Commons, but also on other components. Spring 2016 Open Science needs a coherent data infrastructure system, says e-irg Chair Sverker Holmgren Page 3 New developments and discussions including the European Open Science Cloud. e-irg will also consult ESFRI, as ESFRI consulted with e-irg for its Roadmap.! Read further at Page 13 >> Main conclusions from the e-irg workshop on November 24, 2015 in Belval, Luxembourg: The building blocks of the e-infrastructure Commons have been presented several times but they need to be built further and become integrated towards the users. The providers in the panel share the same goals to best serve the users. The users are not interested in governance or funding models and they don t care if it is one or many organisations serving them. They want to solve their problems and currently it is still difficult to find their way. They want some sort of navigation in the services. e-irg Roadmap will help shape the European Open Science Cloud European Commission announces European Cloud Initiative The e-irg embraces this European Open Science Cloud initiative and sees it as an encouragement to continue the e-irg work on the e-infrastructure Commons in the upcoming Roadmap. The European Commission announced four initiatives: 1. Digitising European industry; 2. A European Cloud Initiative; 3. Priorities for ICT standards; and 4. e-government action plan. Read further at Page 6 >> Read further at Page 7 >> Spring

2 e-irg Executive Board has endorsed a new Mission and Vision statement On April 26, 2016, the e-irg Executive Board had endorsed a new Mission and Vision statement for the e-infrastructure Reflection Group. The new Mission and Vision statement defines the e-irg as a strategic body to facilitate integration in the area of European e-infrastructures and connected services, within and between member states, at the European level and globally. The mission of e-irg is to support both coherent, innovative and strategic European e-infrastructure policymaking and the development of convergent and sustainable e-infrastructure services. The objectives are to sustain e-irg as the leading European advisory body on e- Infrastructures, as well as to maintain and further develop e-irg in its role as the facilitator and stimulator of European e- infrastructure collaboration. To reach these goals, e-irg will act as an external and neutral advisory body being counterpart of reference by producing strategic and policy reports, analyses and recommendations. e-irg will actively stimulate discussion with and between all stakeholder groups. The e-irg delegates will carry out work to inform and influence regional and national policy makers but also European and international stakeholders. e-irg has also the ambition to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the state of the art and progress in the field of e- Infrastructures and as such to promote a user-driven and scientific excellence approach in e-infrastructure policy making taking into account e-irg Members' recommendations and constraints. e-irg will advance the European landscape of e-infrastructures taking into account national roadmaps, propose objectives taking into account the landscape; synergies and future cooperation between projects and/or initiatives, and monitor the impact of e-irg recommendations in the European research infrastructure landscape. e-irg will continue its policy of independence and openness, providing opportunities for all stakeholders to debate their views, and offer perspectives, analyse and propose approaches and consolidate ways forward. e-irg will also facilitate the collaboration between all actors in the field of pan- European e-infrastructures - networking, high-throughput and high-performance computing, and in particular data management and related processes and services. As a consequence, it will stimulate work and strongly facilitate the international coordination of e-infrastructure activities and the presentation of all different components to users as integrated e-infrastructure services; foster innovation in the data area, including stimulating the interaction between data producers, e.g. Research Infrastructures, e-infrastructure providers and leading-edge users; and cooperate with ESFRI, ESFRI RI projects and other pan-european research infrastructures, as well as with the long tail of science in the effect possible.! We need data stewards to operate the European Open Science Cloud At the e-irg workshop in Amsterdam, we had the opportunity to talk to Barend Mons who is chairing the High Level Expert Group on the European Open Science Cloud, an advisory group to the European Commission. To be successful, the European Science Cloud needs a lot of experts to operate it, Barend Mons told us. Data stewards that have a lot of knowledge about managing and maintaining data. Experts who are well respected with a solid career path. Barend Mons also discussed several other findings of the Expert group, whose report will be published very soon. You just had a presentation here, and you were also part of the panel. One of the things that you focused on, was the European Open Science Cloud, because you are chairman of the Expert Group of the European Commission. So can you tell a little bit about the progress? What is the status of the European Science Cloud? Our first assignment was to make a report. That report has been delivered to the Commission, it is now going around for consultation and it will be on the website very soon to be available for everyone. We recommend a number of specific actions to follow up very shortly this year. What are the main actions that you propose? The main actions are that we have framed the European Open Science Cloud as the 'Internet of Data', and that means that any provider who follows very minimal but very strict rules, can join in the game, and we will work very soon on rules of engagement for those who want to provide services in the Cloud. We will test those rules of engagement with major providers, from small companies to the public sector, to big companies, like maybe Elsevier. We will see how reasonable they are, because we really want to push the Science Cloud as what we call the Internet of data and services, rather than some big new initiative which is heavily governed.! Read the full interview text at news-blog/-/blogs/we-need respected-data-stewards-to-operate-theeuropean-open-science-cloud Spring

3 Open Science needs a coherent data infrastructure system, says e-irg Chair Sverker Holmgren At the Open Science Conference, organized April 4-5, 2016 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, e- IRG Chair Sverker Holmgren participated in the panel under the theme "Open Science - Dare to Share". Sverker Holmgren presented e-irg as a body of national delegates from Member States and associated countries. e-irg reflects on the future of e-infrastructures in Europe, on what type of resources are needed, on what is needed for progress of the system and on Open Science. e-irg organizes meetings and open workshops focusing on the sharing of research data and eventually on Open Science. which is good, but a lot of the building blocks are already there. e-irg has tried to describe a setting which is called the e-infrastructure Commons for Europe. This could be the fundamental building block for the European Science Cloud. The e-infrastructure Commons describes the coherent system. In collaboration with the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), In the end, a lot of this boils down to governance and funding streams. How do you govern a data infrastructure system and how do you fund it? Sverker Holmgren doesn't think there is a clear answer to that yet. There is neither a clear answer to what is the partitioning between the European and the national level. That is something that needs to be sorted out and will require a lot of different discussions.! The Research Council in Norway has made a major effort to find out more on the open access and the sharing of data. The effort is still ongoing and fairly advanced. At the start the Research Council organized an extensive survey where one third of the Norwegian researchers were asked about the obstacles to Open Science. One third of the approached researchers responded to the survey. There were two major obstacles. The first was the lack of a merit system. The researchers asked why they should provide access to their data if there was no gain for them. The second was a perceived lack of data infrastructures. However, in Norway, you can already today find fairly advanced and well established data infrastructures for some topics. What might be an issue, according to Sverker Holmgren, is the visibility and availability of these infrastructures. The researcher might ask where he is going to store his data and what are the standards to be used. This is not only the case in Norway but it is a general problem in Europe and also at the global level. e-irg is working to get some more structure into this discussion. e-irg has identified that it is very important to have strong national laws when it comes to data infrastructures, infrastructures being able to analyze the data. This has to be a coherent system, whether it is centralized or distributed, but the researchers have to know where to turn to. This is also the case in Europe. If you have been working in the European arena, there has to be a coherent data e-infrastructure in Europe. Today, there are a lot of discussions about the European Open Science Cloud, e-irg has identified there is the need to identify clear roles of the different actors in a data infrastructure system. Earlier on, a researcher or research group did everything for his/its research data. Today, one might be better off with some specialized actors for storing data, for giving access to data, for setting up the standards, etc. That is another area where e-irg has worked quite a lot and will be continuing to work in the future. Another issue that was observed by the Norwegian researchers is the merit system issue, which is actually the most important one. If we are going to have the system on Open Science working, we will have to have a system that is accepted by the research communities, where they really get some response to this question: "What's in it for me?" A more holistic view on research merits is needed. New e-irg Bylaws have been adopted e-irg's Executive Board had endorsed a new and adapted version of the e-irg bylaws. This newly approved version, edited on April 26, 2016, is now available on the e-irg website at: Spring

4 Highlights from the delegates meetings Four times a year, the e-irg delegates, representing their countries gather for a working meeting. These meetings are organised in the country that at that moment holds the Presidency of the European Union. Since the publishing of the previous edition of this Newsletter, there were two meetings in Luxembourg from which the minutes are already available. Although the meetings are only open for delegates to attend, there are public minutes published of each meeting. These are available on the e-irg web site. Because these delegates meetings are typical working meetings, a lot consists of reporting and discussing ongoing work. Hence when one meeting is finished, the results of the previous meetings are not that interesting anymore, as work has progressed. Here we will summarise the highlights of the Luxembourg delegates meetings. Luxembourg September 2015 The 42nd Delegates Meeting in Luxembourg focused on e-irg/esfri collaboration and new e-irg roadmap on future e-infrastructures development The 42nd Delegates Meeting was held in Luxembourg on September 17, At this meeting, the "hot topics" included the relation between e-infrastructures and Research infrastructures. e-infrastructures are represented by e-irg and the Research Infrastructures by ESFRI, hence the collaboration between e-irg and ESFRI was on the delegates meeting agenda. Another important topic was the new e-irg Roadmap on e-infrastructures development in the coming years. The European Commission is an important player in the e-infrastructure area with several European funding programmes. At the delegates meeting, it was announced that the European Commission launched the Platform Digital4Science that can also be used for discussions about e-infrastructure current issues, for questions and answers about e- infrastructure strategy, policy and activities, for communication amongst project groups and for discussion about KPIs (key Performance Indicators), TRLs (Technology Readiness Levels), and collaboration agreements. These are new features in the Work Programme for e-infrastructures. Delegate Yannis Ioannidis, who is also involved in ESFRI, reported on the ESFRI progress that ESFRI is evaluating the proposals. This is being done by the ESFRI Strategic Working Groups (SWGs) in which e-irg delegates participate. Face to face meetings of the SWGs with proposers have started. Apart from scientific quality of the Research Infrastructures, there is a focus on showing maturity, sustainability, scientific work etc. The e-irg contribution is very significant, both in terms of preparation as well as all the questions that the e-irg has established from the beginning and the participation of the e- IRG members in the SWGs. This is well recognised and appreciated by ESFRI, said Yannis Ioannidis. The mandate of the European Competitiveness Council given to ESFRI has been discussed at e-irg/esfri chairs level and a new joint working group is being formed. In March 2016 a half-day joint ESFRI/e-IRG meeting is being planned. The meeting will coincide with the ESFRI roadmap presentation event on the 10th. e-irg Chair Sverker Holmgren summarised what has taken place with the Competitiveness Council invitation to ESFRI to look at the mechanism for coordinating investments of e-infrastructure. At the June Riga meeting it was decided that e-irg should approach ESFRI to address this invitation together and a mandate was given to the Chair to continue the discussions with ESFRI on this collaboration. The Chair has discussed with the ESFRI Chair the ToR for a joint ESFRI/e-IRG working group. The draft ToR has also been discussed and accepted by the e-irg Executive Board and has been sent to the ESFRI Executive Board. A main point is that e-irg and ESFRI are producing a response in a joint matter. Also in the draft ToR there is an indication that discussion, communication and collaboration with e-irg and ESFRI could continue in the future. Chair Sverker Holmgren said that the process of countries for creating a roadmap and procedures for funding is one part of the mapping process about the impact of the national models. Collecting information on funding streams and coordination of investment at the national level is another part which might be a lot more difficult but e- IRG needs to look into it. He hopes that the trend continues that e-infrastructures are included in the national roadmaps in a natural way. The Mission and Vision, objectives and bylaws of the e-irg were discussed in a miniworkshop. The current mission and vision is already many years old, so it is worthwhile to update them. The Executive Board will be working on preparing a new Mission and Vision statement that will be discussed in the next delegates meeting with the aim to adopt it. Strengthening the e-irg as an advisory body should really be the focus and whether e-irg should present itself as a coordination body needs further discussion. Other aspects that could be included in this objective are user needs and the collaboration with ESFRI. Furthermore e-irg should follow up what happens with e-irg proposals; what the visible impact is and how to make sure that the e-irg achievements are really used in the best possible way. There were many suggested improvements to the bylaws and hence it is clear that a revised version is needed. It is very important that the bylaws formalise the relation between the e-irg delegates and the responsible ministries or government of the Member States. The e-irg delegates should inform the appropriate body and make sure that the flow of information is a two-way flow. There was also a proposal to establish a small e-irg Task Force on the impact of national models that can work together with the support programme and the national delegates to make sure that the information is collected and provided. It was mentioned that the existing Task Forces on the long tale of science and on data analytics and computing have as a subject areas of extensive work during the past years and that will also be the case in the next years. In order to have impact the work by e-irg should bring something different from what already has been done and give a modern perspective. The Task Forces need to look into what has been done e.g. funded by the particular EC units and other sources. The Working Group on the evaluation of the e-infrastructures and development of related KPIs has only recently been established. It has to address KPIs in relation to EC funded projects. The ToR has been sent and is in the commenting/review process. As far as the e-irg roadmap is concerned, the next steps will be to suggest the structure of the roadmap and create a storyline defining the heart of the roadmap in maximal 5 pages. The ambition of the working group is to continue working and to make available the roadmap structure, agreement on its raison d'être and on the method to create it, and candidate topics with explaining text. Luxembourg November 2015 The 43rd Delegates Meeting focused on preparation of ESFRI and e-irg Roadmaps. The 43rd Delegates Meeting was held in Luxembourg at the Campus Belval of the 4 Spring 2016

5 University of Luxembourg on November 23, This meeting for a large part was dedicated to the preparation of the text for the e-infrastructure landscape analysis of the ESFRI 2016 Roadmap. This roadmap has been launched on March 10, 2016 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. e-irg had an important contribution in the process. 16 Research Infrastructures have been approved. In the ESFRI meeting in December in Brussels the main parts of the Roadmap were agreed upon. Planning for the 2018 Roadmap update has already started. On the invitation from the Competitiveness Council to ESFRI to align national efforts for funding e-infrastructures it was confirmed that ESFRI wants to do that with e-irg. The group has not yet started because besides technical expertise, policy and financial expertise is required. The final grouping is to be formed. ESFRI has invited e-irg to draft the text on e- Infrastructures as horizontal layer for ESFRI projects. The e- IRGSP4 support project has created a text based on the guidelines document. It was discussed in the OAWG that was engaged in the ESFRI evaluation and in the Executive Board and was sent to ESFRI. ESFRI discussed it on 8th December 2015 with the goal to agree on the text. At the Delegates Meeting, a number of comments were made on the e-irgsp4 text proposal. There is no explicit reference to data-driven science, just a generic reference. Open data should be more highlighted. There is no reference to the Open Science Cloud. It could be useful to present the e- Infrastructure Commons as basis for Open Science Cloud and include references to existing projects on clouds. An innovation testbed for researchers can also be included e.g., GEANT dark fibre service. A mechanism is needed to enable synergies between international, national and regional levels. It was agreed to include the proposed changes and to send the document for a check to the main e-infrastructure initiatives. The Executive Board was mandated to finalise the document. The Chair summarised the progress on the working group to address the invitation from the Competitiveness Council to ESFRI to look at the mechanism for coordinating investments of e-infrastructure. A new ToR has been created which gives the ESFRI Executive Board a stronger role by being able to invite experts from ministries. ESFRI will reopen the nomination process. ESFRI wants to collaborate with e-irg. The Chair proposed to send the message to ESFRI that e-irg is happy to contribute and also that e- IRG would like to contribute to the work on the roadmap 2018 update. The High Level Expert Group on the European Open Science Cloud has been created by the European Commission. It is chaired by Barend Mons, The Netherlands. Arjen van Rijn has been appointed to be the link with this group and has already exchanged material. e-irg has now the opportunity to give the Member States an opinion about the Open Science Cloud. The main purpose would be to give a coherent view of what the Open Science Cloud is. This has to be done rather quickly to be of any importance. Work is starting for WP There is a first draft of the timetable. Foresights exercises are already on-going. Consultations with e-irg and the Advisory Group on Research Infrastructures including e-infrastructures will start in March 2016, until 1st of June. There is also a strategy for consultation with stakeholders. Consultation with the committees ends in 3Q16. The strategic programming document is planned by the end of 3Q16. Drafting the programme will start in 4Q16. The DG RTD WP18-20 is mainly based on consultation with ESFRI. Rosette Vandenbroucke reported from the EGI Community Forum and Workshop on the Open Science Cloud in Bari. Augusto Burgueño explained in his WP16-17 presentation that there will be a group that will evaluate all proposals/projects including KPIs/costs across all projects - the EINFRA projects. Anni Hellman explained that projects will collect KPIs and ingest into e-irg. The support project will collect the KPIs and e-irg will work at the strategic level. Sergi Girona said that the HPC project EXDCI has a dedicated work package dealing with KPIs. The workshop itself was mostly made of panels. The discussions addressed limitations and barriers, ownership, long-time sustainability of data. The last session was on governance. Marcin Lawenda and Erik Fledderus presented the progress on the roadmap structure. The document structure is as follows: Introduction, Executive Summary, Vision, Landscape Analysis, Policy Actions, Concrete hot topics, Open Science Cloud. It was agreed that a Landscape Analysis is definitively needed besides the one in the ESFRI Roadmap because there is more addressed than just Research Infrastructures. The raison d être is to provide a view on the main trends of the e-infrastructure developments - technology and beyond, e.g. open science. It summarises and organises the knowledge on e- Infrastructure aspects and underlines the-irg position at the EU level. The target audiences of the Roadmap are the European Commission and national organisations, such as ministries and research organisations, organisations both for large Research Infrastructures and for the long tail of science and large collaborations, e.g. the Human Brain Project. The primary target audience of the e- IRG Roadmap is the Member States. The focus is a shift from technical to policy related - stewardship including funding schemes, governance models, incentive structure and policies. It was agreed that the title Roadmap is still appropriate. It is better to keep it for continuity. Subtitles were suggested but no decision on these was taken. The delegates were invited to look in their national roadmaps at the balance between policy and research aspects. The delegates were invited to suggest key technology developments that the roadmap should discuss. What are the main challenges? The goal is to investigate various scenarios in the Roadmap as input to decision makers because the situation is much more complex than a few years ago, to analyse the different pathways and opportunities, and to provide concrete conclusions and recommendations. It was agreed to link sections 3 (Vision) and 7 (Open Science Cloud) explaining in section 3 Spring

6 that the Open Science Cloud is an incarnation of the Commons. It was decided to inform ESFRI that they will be invited to provide contributions for the e-irg Roadmap. The delegates were invited to contribute to the creation of the Roadmap. It was concluded that the e-irg Roadmap is a policy-oriented document that can also include technology areas that may influence e-infrastructures and are relevant for scientific users. At the end of the meeting, the updated mission and vision, objectives and bylaws of e- IRG were presented. The new text for the e- IRG mission and vision is as follows: e-irg is a strategic body to facilitate integration in the area of European e- infrastructures and connected services, within and between member states, at the European level and globally. The mission of e-irg is to support both coherent, innovative and strategic European e-infrastructure policy making and the development of convergent and sustainable e-infrastructure services. In the discussion of the bylaws it was agreed to review the bylaws every three years. Also observers are to be reconfirmed every three years. It was concluded that there should be a voting procedure when there is no consensus. The idea is to stay with two delegates per country, but however, one vote per country. It was agreed to remove the sentence: Members may replace their delegates whenever they deem appropriate, and to add the Chair in the sentence where delegations should provide their own funding.! e-irg Roadmap will help shape the European Open Science Cloud proposed by the European Commission The Hague , On April 19, the European Commission presented a vision for the European Science Cloud that will bring together current and future data infrastructures. The European Open Science Cloud will be created for European researchers and their global scientific collaborators by integrating and consolidating e- infrastructure platforms, federating existing scientific clouds and research infrastructures, and supporting the development of cloud-based services. The e-irg is paving the way towards a general purpose European e- Infrastructure already since its inception and many important building blocks are already in place. The e-irg embraces this European Open Science Cloud initiative and sees it as an encouragement to continue its work to facilitate integration in the area of European e-infrastructures and connected services between the member states, at the European level, and internationally. The e-irg Roadmap 2016 to be published this Summer, will give guidance and recommendations for policy and technical discussions on the main European Open Science Cloud topics. At the e-irg meeting in Amsterdam on March 11, the e-irg national Günther Oettinger, Andrus Ansip and Carlos Moedas (from right to left) delegates decided to elaborate its concept of the e-infrastructure Commons in the new Roadmap and explain in more detail how this provides a fundament for developing the European Open Science Cloud, consistent with established European initiatives and national priorities. Sverker Holmgren, e-irg Chair, says: "The e- IRG very much welcomes the European Commission's initiative for a European Open Science Cloud. The build-up of the European Open Science Cloud is an important challenge and the e-irg is already contributing to its foundation by promoting the development of the e-infrastructure Commons : a single European e- Infrastructure for researchers. The European Open Science Cloud is also a recognition of the work that e-irg and many others have done in the e- Infrastructures area." Erik Fledderus, editor of the e-irg 2016 Roadmap says: "The topics discussed and the recommendations given in our 2016 Roadmap, match very well with the Open Science Cloud vision. We are convinced the Roadmap, produced by a large group of e-irg members and external experts, will contribute significantly to the progress towards the realisation of the Open Science Cloud."! 6 Spring 2016

7 European Commission announces European Cloud Initiative On April 19, the European Commission announced four initiatives: 1. Digitising European industry: Reaping the full benefits of a digital single market; 2. A European Cloud Initiative; 3. Priorities for ICT standards; and 4. e-government action plan. The Commission will: help coordinate national and regional initiatives on digitising industry by maintaining a continuous EU-wide dialogue with all actors involved. A governance framework will be set up with Member States and industry. focus investments in EU's public-private partnerships and strongly encourage the use of the opportunities offered by the EU Investment Plan and European Structural and Investment Funds. invest 500 million euro in a pan-eu network of digital innovation hubs (Centres of Excellence in technology) where businesses can obtain advice and test digital innovations. set up large-scale pilot projects to strengthen internet of things, advanced manufacturing and technologies in smart cities and homes, connected cars or mobile health services. adopt future-proof legislation that will support the free flow of data and clarify ownership of data generated by sensors and smart devices. The Commission will also review rules on safety and liability of autonomous systems. present an EU skills agenda that will help give people the skills needed for jobs in the digital age. The European Cloud Initiative also forms part of this package and will help Europe lead in the data-driven economy. Overall, the plans should mobilise over 50 billion euro of public and private investments in support of the digitisation of industry. The way that the European Commission uses the word Cloud is a bit, actually more than a bit, confusing. This is how it fits together: The European Cloud Initiative in itself has two parts: The European Open Science and the new European Data Infrastructure (EDI) aim to deploy the supercomputing capacity, fast connectivity and high-capacity Cloud solutions required by the European Open Science Cloud. Quantum Computing is also part of the European Cloud Initiative. The European Cloud Initiative is a blueprint for Cloud-based services and world-class data infrastructure to ensure science, business and public services reap benefits of Big Data revolution. Europe is the largest producer of scientific data in the world, but insufficient and fragmented infrastructure means this 'Big Data' is not being exploited to its full potential. By bolstering and interconnecting existing research infrastructure, the Commission plans to create a new European Open Science Cloud that will offer Europe's 1,7 million researchers and 70 million science and technology professionals a virtual environment to store, share and re-use their data across disciplines and borders. This will be underpinned by the European Data Infrastructure, deploying the highbandwidth networks, large scale storage Carlos Moedas, Photo: EC. facilities and supercomputer capacity necessary to effectively access and process large datasets stored in the Cloud. This worldclass infrastructure will ensure Europe participates in the global race for high performance computing in line with its economic and knowledge potential. Focusing initially on the scientific community - in Europe and among its global partners, the user base will over time be enlarged to the public sector and to industry. The European Cloud Initiative will make it easier for researchers and innovators to access and re-use data, and will reduce the cost of data storage and high-performance analysis. Making research data openly available can help boost Europe's competitiveness by benefiting start-ups, SMEs and data-driven innovation, including in the fields of medicine and public health. It can even spur new industries, as demonstrated by the Human Genome Project. The Commission will progressively put in place the European Cloud Initiative through a series of actions, including: As of 2016: creating a European Open Science Cloud for European researchers and their global scientific collaborators by integrating and consolidating e- infrastructure platforms, federating existing scientific clouds and research infrastructures, and supporting the development of Cloud-based services. 2017: opening up by default all scientific data produced by future projects under the Horizon 2020 programme, to ensure that the scientific community can re-use the enormous amount of data they generate. 2018: launching a flagship-type initiative to accelerate the nascent development of quantum technology, which is the basis for the next generation of supercomputers. By 2020: developing and deploying a large scale European high performance computing, data storage and network infrastructure, including by acquiring two prototype next-generation supercomputers of which one would rank among the top three in the world, establishing a European Big Data centre, and upgrading GEANT. In addition to the European research community, the European Open Science Cloud and the European Data Infrastructure will be accessible and bring benefits for a host of other users: Businesses will have cost-effective and easy access to top level data and computing infrastructure, as well as a wealth of scientific data enabling data-driven innovation. This will benefit SMEs, which typically lack access to such resources. Industry will benefit from the creation of a large-scale Cloud eco-system, supporting the development of new European technologies such as low-power chips for high performance computing. Public services will benefit from reliable access to powerful computing resources and the creation of a platform to open their data and services, which can lead to cheaper, better and faster interconnected public services. Researchers will also benefit from online access to the wealth of data created by public services. The public and private investment needed to implement the European Cloud Initiative is estimated at 6,7 billion euro. The Commission estimates that, overall, 2 billion euro in Horizon 2020 funding will be allocated to the European Cloud initiative. The required additional public and private investment is 4,7 billion euro in the period of 5 years.! /246094/European+Cloud+Initiative +-+Building+a+competitive+data+and +knowledge+economy+in+europe.pdf Spring

8 Interview e-irg & ESFRI Chairs e-irg's Sverker Holmgren and ESFRI's John Womersley and Giorgio Rossi on mutual collaboration between e-irg and ESFRI At the occasion of the joint e-irg/esfri meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on March 11, 2016, we had the opportunity to perform a triple interview with Sverker Holmgren, e-irg Chair; John Womersley, current ESFRI Chair; and Giorgio Rossi, current vice-president and future president of ESFRI. All three had been present at several adjacent events addressing e-infrastructures and research infrastructures, including the e- IRG Open Workshop, the ESFRI experience workshop and the ESFRI roadmap launch event. e-irg's Sverker Holmgren explained what e- infrastructures are about. They are the ICT resources needed to do a lot of modern science, ranging from networking connectivity over distributed computing, data services, data storage, and high-performance computing. e- Infrastructures are a set of services for doing science. ESFRI's John Womersley expanded on research infrastructures. A research infrastructure is the facility, equipment or capital investment that scientists need to get the best of their research capabilities. ESFRI has a specific responsibility for a coherent strategy-led approach to the large research facilities that require pan-european investment pooling of resources between all of the European countries to deliver excellent science. ESFRI's Giorgio Rossi told that ESFRI has almost 15 years of history starting in 2006 with the first roadmap identifying infrastructures that were considered to be strategic for shaping the European Research Area and organizing advanced research in Europe. Some of these early projects have grown into fully functioning and wellperforming research infrastructures. Therefore they have gained experience on all the aspects that are involved in this journey. These aspects are of course scientific and technical, but also financial and organisational. They include the type of governance, the type of legal entity that at some point an infrastructure must take on. These experiences are fed into more recent projects. This workshop was involving the new projects of the new ESFRI roadmap 2016 as experiences that may lead to a better and higher efficiency move towards implementation by the new projects. This is something that is working quite well within the ESFRI community. There is an exchange of experience; there is mutual help in shaping the overall infrastructure system. The infrastructures interact a lot with each other and this has a lot to do with the e- infrastructure part of them. With regard to the e-irg Workshop Sverker Holmgren said that it was focusing on the development of the current status and the future outline of the concept of the e- Infrastructure Commons that is something that the e-irg has developed during the last years. The idea is to have an integrated and coherent landscape of the e-infrastructure services providing an e-infrastructure to the ESFRI projects but also to other research infrastructures and to research in general in Europe. The workshop as such was one step forward towards the creation of this e- Infrastructure Commons. John Womersley expanded on the launch of the new update of the ESFRI roadmap, that was presented at the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam on March 10, This is officially a strategy report on research infrastructures. The roadmap describes 21 new projects needed to maintain the high quality of European research across a very wide area of activities, from particle physics and astronomy to heritage science, energy materials science, environment and life sciences along the way. The roadmap also describes 29 projects which are already under implementation and which come from earlier versions of the ESFRI roadmap. There is a concerted action among European countries to invest in and maintain research capability. This represents a very big investment; it represents a big willingness of the European science community to work together. ESFRI has been quite rigorous and careful in its prioritization and selection of these new projects, both for their scientific quality, for their project management and their readiness to go into implementation. This is a real measure of quality that ESFRI has been able to select and add new projects to this roadmap and that it has now identified 29 projects that are under implementation and that are delivering excellent science, on course for construction to support European research quality. This was well received and the science community is very supportive of this effort. It sees ESFRI's roadmap as a real sign of support and quality mark but it has to be emphasized that ESFRI does not provide the money for these projects. It depends upon the support from the member states and the associated countries. One sits around the table within ESFRI to work with the projects and help them secure the support that they need to be constructive and to maintain operations going forward. The launch of the ESFRI roadmap was a major step forward because it is the first roadmap in six years, the first opportunity for new projects to be selected. There were presentations from the eight new projects which have been added to the roadmap and that got a very positive reception from the science community. One of the observations in the six years since ESFRI last updated the roadmap is the growing importance of e-infrastructure. These research infrastructures develop, generate and bring together very large amounts of data. In fact for some of them, in areas like environmental research, the sharing of data is really the value that is added by the infrastructure. It brings together a lot of sensors and national research capability into a single large pool of datasets. Handling that data is increasingly important. Even the big facilities for life sciences and physical sciences are generating as much data now as extreme projects like CERN used to generate 10 years ago. We cannot rely on each project solving these problems for themselves. That would be crazy. They need to connect into a common European approach towards the handling of scientific data which is exactly the issue that the e-infrastructure Reflection Group has identified in its e-infrastructure Commons. ESFRI wants to work very closely together to flesh out these ideas and describe how they should best be implemented going forward. Sverker Holmgren told about the joint meeting between e-irg and ESFRI which he described as a very fruitful meeting. It was the second joint meeting that was organized in this constellation. e-irg and ESFRI jointly see that this issue of data and e-infrastructure is now becoming more and more important for research infrastructures and for research in general. This is combined with the effort of providing data and providing open access to these resources. There were very interesting discussions and there was agreement to bring these discussions further on as well as further collaboration between these two groups. e- IRG and ESFRI will see how to develop this in more concrete details during the coming year. 8 Spring 2016

9 Giorgio Rossi said that one of the duties of ESFRI, after having shaped the roadmap, is to take care of the roadmap, which means to monitor the good development of the projects and to monitor the good performance of the more mature projects that have been labeled as landmarks. Part of this monitoring has to do with the e- infrastructure aspect of them. It will be particularly important for those mature projects performing science that have been called landmarks to be strongly exposed to the other projects, and to integrate or to identify, or sometimes maybe even be leaders in shaping the Commons and the new criteria for developing the data management, the access to the data, possibly by different communities than those that produced the data at the beginning, and therefore to contribute to the full deployment of the science that can be generated at research infrastructures. John Womersley expanded on some very concrete activities that ESFRI has identified working together. ESFRI has benefited greatly from the involvement of e-irg members in developing the roadmap and ESFRI wants to continue to involve them in the monitoring of the projects as they move forward. ESFRI is very pleased that e-irg has invited ESFRI to contribute expertise to the updating of e- IRG's own strategic roadmap. They are also very closely working together to respond to a mandate that ESFRI received from the European Council of Ministers to develop a more coherent approach to member state investment in e-infrastructure. This of course requires substantial spending and that spending needs to be coordinated, so this is a strong basis to work closely together while recognizing that e-irg and ESFRI come from slightly different perspectives with different competences. ESFRI is a forum that brings together representatives of the ministries of the member states with a mission to coordinate investment in big facilities while e- IRG is looking at the infrastructure serving the whole of science. There is a great deal of overlap but they are bringing a different perspective and through bringing these different perspectives together both organisations can be much more influential and much better informed. Sverker Holmgren explained that the e-irg roadmap is now ongoing work. There are some draft versions of parts of the roadmap but e-irg needs quite a lot more input, especially when it comes to the needs of the users. Part of that of course is to get input from ESFRI research infrastructures for projects to make sure that e-irg can cater for those needs in this discussion. The timeline here is that e-irg would like to have this roadmap completed during Spring so that it can be presented during Summer or early Autumn. Giorgio Rossi said that there has been made another milestone in the journey towards shaping the European Research Area for the important backbone of research infrastructures. ESFRI has refined the methodology for identifying the projects, for identifying in older ones relevant aspects and relational aspects which have a lot to do with the infrastructure part. Now, ESFRI is about to refine the methodology for monitoring and assessing periodically these projects. ESFRI looks forward to the new additions and updates of the roadmap that follow the new criteria that ESFRI has adopted. Every project has a ten-year time in the ESFRI roadmap. During those ten years it should reach the implementation phase. If it fails, it will have to reformulate itself and maybe apply again but ESFRI will not insist on projects that don't seem to be capable of reaching in due time their usefulness in the European Research Area. John Womersley said that Europe has extremely good universities and excellent scientists and researchers but they'll only have the impact that we hope on society and our future economic competitiveness if they can get access to really excellent research capability. That depends on research facilities like the ones in the ESFRI roadmap. It also depends on the ability to handle data and have access to computing and networking capabilities like those that the e-irg are describing. These are not just important for the scientific community. They are really key to our future prosperity and health and wellbeing as a society. Sverker Holmgren agreed that this change of the modus operandi of science is quite important to happen because of the capability of ICT resources. It is very natural and maybe also actually needed that this is discussed jointly, for example, by the two organisations.! v=u_gkmkvrhfq Sverker Holmgren John Womersley Giorgio Rossi Spring

10 Interview Rudi Balling e-infrastructure brings computational experts and application developers together to cope with avalanche of data Ad Emmen, Esch-sur-Alzette, During the e-irg Open Workshop, held in Belval/Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, we had the opportunity to talk with Professor Rudi Balling who is heading the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine at the University of Luxembourg. This is an interdisciplinary centre which has under one roof experimental and computational biology, programmers, IT, engineers, physicists and mathematicians, and at the same time is reaching out to questions in health, particularly in the domain of neurodegenerative diseases. The main emphasis is on Parkinson's disease which is the second most common neuro-degenerative disease next to Alzheimer's. The researchers at the centre are trying to figure out the mechanisms of orthogenesis: where is the disease coming from? Is it hereditary? Is it environmentally triggered? The researchers are trying to develop computational models to mathematically describe the diseases. This is very similar to what happens when you design an air plane. You do not launch 1,000 air planes to count how many come down but first you do the design on the computer with simulations. In order to perform these simulations, there is a need for IT and computational biologists. The biologists and the medical doctors have to very closely talk to each other. The centre now has about 250 people. Half of them have a background in experimental biology and the other half in computational biology, IT, physics, and so on. These people are working in two buildings. Recently, part of them moved into a second building. Ninety percent of the E-IRG NEWSLETTER researchers are in one building, spread out over three floors, but it is key that they are in one building at the new campus of Belval where most of the University of Luxembourg is located since a couple of months. As for the computational resources that are available, Rudi Balling told that they have about 1000 cores and that the centre is storing 5 Petabytes of data. The amount of data that is coming out of analyzing biological systems as well as medical disease systems such as imaging, DNA sequencing, analyzing with robots, is just exploding. Within two years, the researchers at Belval have about a tenfold of data more than they had a few years ago. If you look into the IT infrastructure in Luxembourg it is pretty good. Luxembourg has a finance industry that needs to have quick online retrieval of information from the financial markets and the stock market. Luxembourg has very good networking connections to Paris and London. The country Rudi Balling, Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine has excellent data storage centres. There is infrastructure in IT, already available, that needs to be continuously built, but it can be capitalized and built on, so Luxembourg doesn't need to build anything from scratch. The value of infrastructure - initially, it was more in the area of computational biology and sequencing centres - is now the key issue if you want to compute. International collaboration is essential, particularly when you are in a small country like Luxembourg. This country has about half a million people, five hospitals, and is 80 by 60 kilometres. Luxembourg cannot compete, for example, by studying large patient numbers such as France and the United Kingdom. Rudi Balling explained that the researchers have to bring in additional elements. Maybe they can analyze the data better than in other countries. For researchers in Luxembourg information and communication technology, modelling, simulation, network analysis, disease analysis are areas where they focus on and where they would like to put a stamp on in the international competition. Rudi Balling thinks the e-infrastructure Commons is a fantastic idea, something that the community really has to develop. He considers infrastructure, especially in IT, is an attractor. It has done more for the European Research Area (ERA) than anything else. It brings people together, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, you can talk to experts. Infrastructure is the place where people need to discuss what to do with the infrastructure, almost like a form, and if the infrastructure is at the edge of technology, it has a very catalytic effect. You need to have very interesting pilot projects brought to the front end of the infrastructure and then, things will move. One of the challenges Rudi Balling sees in the ICT revolution, the avalanche that is coming in with Big Data, complex data, heterogeneous data, is that the infrastructure needs to sort of compose the effect by algorithms that help us to analyze the data. Fast computing is becoming more and more essential but fast computing will be driven by two major factors. One is our ability to have fast computers. The other is our ability to develop algorithms that take advantage of these fast computers. There is a need to invest in both: software developers who are able to bring the projects to these high performance computing facilities and centres. The users, the experimentalists, the application developers have to be very close to the people who develop the latest infrastructure. What kind of computers do we need, because more and more the algorithms are built-in into the computer. There needs to be a very close interaction between experimentalists and computer experts. When you see what is now happening in the area of machine learning and machine intelligence, a major incentive of this is how the human brain works. Lots of information is coming in, lots of it is not completely reliable. You need to have a lot of information that is integrated, you need to weigh the liability of the information, you need feedback from what you have seen in the past, you need to project it with a probability into the future. Computer programmes in the future will partly learn from the human brain and vice versa.! v=tjyhmzeyzyg 10 Spring 2016

11 Around Europe Country news Country description in the e-irg Knowledge Base updated The country description in the e-irg Knowledge Base has been actualized and updated with new information on the national infrastructure, policy and documents. Croatia The national roadmap will be updated in the next few months. A call has been launched for Centres of Excellence to be included in the roadmap. Croatia has a new supercomputer in the TOP500 list. The national Fedora-based system will set up repositories. A new 7-year project has started to digitise all primary and secondary schools. Some preparatory work was initiated on documentation cloud. Italy The Integrated Platform for the European Research Infrastructure ON Culture Heritage - IPERION - became an ERIC. The European Commission announced an Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) for building a big HPC machine. It will be led by Luxembourg and Italy. France and Spain will participate. There is a new initiative on machine learning. A 100 million euro investment was made in the GARR network for fibre everywhere including the schools. Lithuania Two new research centres - the Joint Centre for Life Sciences and the National Centre of Physical and Technological Sciences - have been opened on March 15, 2016 at the Saulėtekis (Sunrise) Campus, Vilnius University. The opening of the centres is significant not only to Vilnius University, but to all Lithuania. The emerging Lithuanian science nucleus will lead the country's progress in the most promising technology fields for many decades ahead. A large share of the most prominent Lithuanian scientific groups will concentrate here. Extensive knowledge and experience is expected to be created at the centres as well. Short takes Belgium The Flemish region has decided on a new supercomputer and has selected NEC. Bulgaria Bulgaria has a new supercomputer. It became fully operational in December 2015 and will be accessible to all SEE countries. Estonia The next call for Research Infrastructure Roadmap projects was initiated. In 2016, more funding will be available for developing the national infrastructure. A data cloud is being set up that will mainly be used for the government services. France The new French Research Infrastructures Roadmap has been presented on March Germany There has been a National Grid Initiative in 2014 and in The institutions are paying, not the government. Austria will be under the umbrella of the German NGI. The Netherlands A majority in Parliament is in favour but the Ministry of Economic Affairs does not provide the money promised for infrastructure. There is a permanent committee for research infrastructures including e-infrastructures, probably as a sub-committee. Norway The new Roadmap will distinguish between RIs and e-infrastructures. One has not decided yet about data. If grouped under e- Infrastructure there may be a risk for not gluing with the thematic areas and vice versa. Nordforsk's Nordic Action Plan was submitted to the Nordic Council of Ministers. The Council decided to implement it but unfortunately did not allocate money so Nordforsk has to get funding from the Nordic member states. NEIC will deal with the implementation.! Next e-irg workshop Bratislava, Slovakia The next e-irg Workshop will be held in Slovakia. Keep an eye on the e-irg website for the exact date and topics.! Biomedicine: The art is in the integration Cellular Models Sequencing Data Bioinformatics Biomarkers Animal/iPSC Models Omics Data Computational Biology Drug Targets Patient Cohorts Imaging Data Clinical Trials Clinical Data Constraint based Modeling Clinical Decision Support EHR Social Data Dynamic Modeling Public Health Guidance Overview provided by Rudi Baling, Luxembourg Centre for Systems 11/24/ Spring

12 Azerbaijan e- infrastructure is developing fast thanks to project partnership with European Community Ad Emmen, Esch-sur-Alzette, November 2015 During the e-irg Open Workshop, held in November 2015 in Belval/Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, we had the opportunity to talk with Rasim Alguliyev, Ramiz Aliguliyev, and Vugar Musayev from the Institute of Information Technology, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) in Azerbaijan. The Institute of Information Technology was founded in Azerbaijan is building a national scientific and educational network community, called AzScienceNet. AzScienceNet harvests research institutions and is working on the training and popularization of ICT knowledge in Azerbaijan. Another goal is to apply all the innovation, knowledge and experience to practice and cooperate with state authorities and business structures. The Institute of Information Technology is the main institution in Azerbaijan that is responsible for developing ICT technology in Azerbaijan. It has 500 employees. Ramiz Alguliyev's area of interest is Cloud computing, data mining and Big Data analytics, and social networking analysis. He was particularly interested in the UK presentation at the e-irg Workshop in Belval. In this area, Alguliyev's department is working with colleagues in Switzerland, the UK, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Australia, and Malaysia. Azerbaijan has a population of about 10 million people. It became an independent country in 1991 and is trying to be part of the European Community. The country has a need for high quality knowledge in human resources in order to stay competitive with other countries. Azerbaijan is transforming to a society of knowledge association. In terms of ICT technology, the country is growing very rapidly. All electronic services are based on the online environment. In 2013, Azerbaijan's first satellite was launched into space and now it is on the verge of launching the third one. In this region Azerbaijan is the first country to have this satellite technology. Azerbaijan is building a huge base of high technology. All this is based on scientific cooperation. Azerbaijan has a good relationship with the European Community. Azerbaijan also participates in the GEANT Association. It is participating in multiple projects that are benefiting Azerbaijan's society. The Institute of Information Technology in 1991 was the first to connect to the Internet in the country. The first national infrastructure was created in the academic domain by specialists of the Institute of Information Technology. The Institute is responsible for transferring innovative technology to all other institutions in Azerbaijan. In these academic institutions more than people are active. In this regard, AzScienceNet delivers important services to these institutions. The Institute of Information Technology has Rasim Alguliyev, ANAS started to create a small supercomputing system. About three years ago, the Institute began to support Cloud services in Azerbaijan. Other institutions which need big computing resources, use the available Cloud services in order to solve their problems. This technology has been spread all over the country. It is an excellent platform for the European Community because it will be connected to a pan-european platform. Azerbaijan is taking part in EaPConnect, a European network project for Eastern Partnership countries for a budget of 13,6 million euro. The European Commission's Directorate-General for Neighborhood and Enlargements Negotiations (DG NEAR) is contributing 95% (13 million euro) towards the cost of the EaPConnect project; the remaining 5% will be co-funded by the six beneficiary countries. In this project, the Azerbaijan scientific and educational community will be connected to the highway pan-european network. This will be a good opportunity to accelerate the integration process of the Azerbaijan scientific community into the European scientific community. Launched in July 2015, the Eastern Partnership Connect (EaPConnect) project aims to: establish and operate a high-capacity broadband internet network for research and education and integrate the national research and education networks (NRENs) in the region into the pan-european GEANT network. decrease the digital divide. facilitate participation of local scientists, students and academics in global research and education collaborations. By interconnecting the R&E communities across the region and with their European counterparts, EaPConnect will create a gateway for talented individuals in the EaP countries to be truly global players. EC recognises the importance of e-infrastructures in bridging the digital divide and bringing its partners closer to the EU. The project was officially inaugurated at the 1st Eastern Partnership Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy and is expected to have a duration of five years. Ramiz Alguliyev said that his focus of research is on text mining and classification. For the time, text mining methods are developed for English language but they will also be applied to the Azerbaijan language. Of course, for English language there are many databases and tools available. The older generation in Azerbaijan used extensively the Russian language in academic community but young people now are communicating in English. To accelerate the cooperation with European counterparts especially in research and education, a lot of problems have to be solved. The Institute of Information Technology is in the middle of a scientific community. It has the opportunity to communicate with its users, with Europe, and with other partners in science and education. Therefore, the e-irg Workshop is very important to know what the European requirements in terms of the e- Infrastructure Commons are for this technology partnership with Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan partners are very happy to be involved and to contribute.! v=jflvyfbfgzi 12 Spring 2016

13 e-irg Workshop Esch-sur Alzette Building blocks e-infrastructure Commons November 24 25, 2015 Marcin Ostasz, e-irgsp4 The main objective of the e-irg Workshop, held November 24-25, 2015 at the Belval Campus in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, was to identify the building elements of the e-infrastructure Commons, a platform uniting all e- Infrastructures into a single service point for all research needs. The main conclusions were that the definition of the e-infrastructure Commons needs to be further developed and agreed on, taking into consideration the current draft and also the outcome of this workshop. In this process, an emphasis needs to be placed on the services to be provided, the operational mechanism to ensure the provision of these services, clear interfaces to the current service provision mechanisms, and the definition of a funding and legal model. Rudi Balling from the Luxembourg Centre for Systems at Belval (LCSB) held a short keynote. LCSB is an interdisciplinary biomedicine research centre. It requires IT to drive its research activities but it is also the progress of IT that defines the potential of the research activities of the centre. The biggest challenge of all is Data Integration & Data Standardisation. The exact position of the commercial service providers needs to be defined - whether they are drivers, partners or competitors. Session 1: Evaluation of the e-infrastructure Commons In the first session on the evaluation of the progress of the e-infrastructure Commons, Arjen van Rijn clarified the view of e-irg. According to the e-irg 2013 White Paper, the current definition of the e-infrastructure Commons is an ecosystem of ICT services for scientific research attained through a joint strategic effort between users, primary strategic actors and suppliers, in which providers have the freedom to innovate and where users enjoy the freedom to choose the services they need from a mix of public e-infrastructure and commercial services. In this way, users can focus on doing science, through international research collaborations, whilst avoiding spending effort on the requirements to access various services. The Commons would span over both the ESFRI Research Infrastructures and other research infrastructures and ensure the provision of tools and services concerning data, computing and networking/connectivity. The e-irg recommendations for the strategic actors of this arena are for international user groups to get organised; for international e- infrastructure organisations to team up; for national governments and funding agencies to make strong building blocks; for the European Commission to strengthen, regulate, and coordinate; and for the existing e- infrastructure providers to innovate or perish. The WP2016/17 recommendations, identified in June 2014, are national e-infrastructure coordination, European e-infrastructure coordination, availability of horizontal services, transnational ease of use, development of appropriate commercial services, and well organized user communities. Augusto Burgueño from the EC, DG CONNECT, talked about how the e- infrastructure Work Programme can support the e-infrastructure Commons. He introduced the Work Programme of the EC and its relationship with the e-infrastructures and the Commons. The implementation principles of this landscape consist of service orientation through a catalogue of services; maximising the impact of e-infrastructures trough the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for operational, technical and socio-economic impact assessment; innovation through codesign; open research data; participation in international fora such as the Research Data Alliance (RDA); and Horizon 2020 as a catalyst for growth and jobs. The e-infra WP EC Work Programme consists of three themes: integration and consolidation of e- Infrastructure platforms; prototyping innovative e-infrastructure platforms and services; and support to policies and international cooperation. The various aspects of the e-commons are included in these themes. The platform for the coordination of the services building the Commons corresponds with theme 3 of policy support, KPIs and cost models. The provision of sustainable and interoperable services within the Commons corresponds with theme 1 of integration and consolidation through a service catalogue. Innovation corresponds with theme 2 of innovation in openness and co-design. Break-out Sessions During the break-out sessions of the evaluation of the progress of the e- Infrastructure Commons, the attendees were Spring

14 divided into groups to discuss the definition of the concept of the e- Infrastructure Commons. The basis of the definition provided was an ecosystem of ICT services for scientific research, where users enjoy the freedom to choose the services they need from a mix of public e-infrastructure and commercial services and where providers have the freedom to innovate. Three questions were asked: What can we do to improve the concept of the e-infrastructure Commons and what is the difference with the European Science Cloud? What do you believe are essential elements of an e- infrastructure commons in terms of e- Infrastructure services and what do we mean with 'interoperable and integrated services'? How should we coordinate that on the European level and what about a single coordinating 'European e-infrastructure organisation'? The Working Groups were asked to relate these issues to the different stakeholder groups of national governments and research funding agencies, the European Commission, national e-infrastructure providers, European e-infrastructure providers, European and international research communities, and commercial e-infrastructure providers, and develop recommendations for them. The recommendations for the national governments and research funding agencies were that national funding should be an enabler for participation in the commons for the national e-infrastructures and that the researcher communities should have the possibility of choosing between commercial and public providers. The European Commission should develop resource granting mechanisms on the European level to address European-wide research challenges. The national e-infrastructure providers have to virtualise, abstract, make available and publicise their resources in a standard, common and interoperable way. They have to support the whole range of user needs from big sciences to the long tail. They also have to develop cost models and demonstrate their added value compared to commercial providers. There is a need for an incentive structure which will make the infrastructures accountable to the end user. The commercial e-infrastructure providers have to beware of market failures that might jeopardise long-term project sustainability. The following conclusions can be drawn from the discussions: 1. The key concepts of the e-infrastructure Commons and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) need to be further clarified to resolve the current confusion of the end users. The e-infrastructure Commons concept should identify the elements and stakeholders addressed. There should be examples of what e-infrastructure Commons is and what it does. The IPR needs to be addressed by the EOSC. It could be in conflict with the commercial environment. This process needs to be driven by the Member States or the EC. On the implementation of the concept of e- infrastructure Commons, it was concluded that Member States and the European Commission need to integrate the existing e- infrastructure services into a commons with interoperability, steering it towards a common integrated approach. The definition of e- Infrastructure Commons should specify the interactions with other elements. The e- Infrastructure Commons should support the whole research process. Researchers should be able to control their results and improve their profile. Data Management should be enabled, including the ability to cite, The e-infrastructure Commons is the basis for the EU Open Science Cloud Member States and the European Commission need to integrate the existing e-infrastructure services into a commons anonymise data, etc. On the difference between the e- Infrastructure Commons and the European Science Cloud, it was said that Cloud is the way we use the commons to serve Open Science. Cloud is flexible, adaptable and available for different user needs. The e- Infrastructure Commons is the basis for the EU Open Science Cloud. The EOSC can also be considered an instance of the e- Infrastructure Commons. Diverging opinions were raised on this point. 2. The essential elements of e-commons include connectivity, data, computing, tools, federated access, security, policies, legal and ethical issues, and human networks. 3. Integrated approach means 'user-centric integration', i.e. being driven by user needs. 4. Interoperable services means that all providers should virtualise and publicise their resources in a standard, common or interoperable way. The user communities need to define the requirements. They need to define the entry point for various disciplines, or per community. Service levels for the entry points need to be determined as well. 5. Governance should be central but needs to follow a bottom-up user-driven approach, with the involvement of the European Commission. There has to be a hub and spoke approach between service providers and the user communities. ERIC could be a suitable legal form, which is also good for sustainability. Session 2: Towards a one-stop shop for e- infrastructure users In the session Towards a one-stop shop for e-infrastructure users, Jan Gruntorad & Jan Oppolzer presented the Infrastructure Environment for R&D in the Czech Republic and CESNET's approach to e-infrastructure users. The country has developed a Roadmap for Large Research, Development and Innovation. Within this framework, the task of CESNET is to develop and operate the network communication infrastructure in the Czech Republic to support science and research as a non-public operator. CESNET is a one-stop shop point for use of all services, except HPC. All academic users have open access to e-infrastructure services. There is a process for feedback from users, via the CESNET Users Advisory Board. Co-funding of about 15% is provided by user organisations based on their budget. David Salmon from JISC talked about e- Infrastructure convergence in the UK. The UK e-infrastructure components include the national R&E network Janet plus high-capacity peerings with the national commercial Internet service providers, internationally with NRENs via GEANT and the commercial Internet, for compute and data storage services with internal, external and national frameworks, with Research Council national laboratories and facilities, and for community resources with university and organisationlevel compute and storage resources, and local facilities. Some examples of the national and international members are the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) or EMBL/EBI Hinxton. On the national and regional level examples are EPSRC Archer HPC and HPC Wales. The coordination of this system takes place through the e- Infrastructure Leadership Council, the UK cross-research Council e-infrastructure Working Group, the HPC Special Interest Group, and the Big Data Special Interest Group. The stakeholders and contributors are the Research Councils, JISC, and mature research communities. The JISC activities with research communities consist in networking, research data management work, a security and access management Working Group, 14 Spring 2016

15 framework contracts for access to commercial providers, the HPC access portal Arcus, data centre framework contracts, and collaborations with EGI, EUDAT, and e-irg. There is a 4 million GBP e-infrastructure fund which is reserved for industry support. In the UK a one-stop-shop approach is premature because it is too simple. The real world is complex. Evolution is needed to accommodate the long tail of science. A federated approach could work where appropriate. Session 3: Evaluation of the progress of the e- Infrastructure Commons In the third session on the evaluation of the progress of the e-infrastructure Commons, the topic was the re-use of existing e- Infrastructures. Steven Newhouse elaborated on ELIXIR. ELIXIR is a sustainable European infrastructure for biological research data. Its tasks are to facilitate research, safeguard data and build sustainable data services. It delivers services through ELIXIR Nodes building on national strengths and priorities. The coordination is delivered through an Elixir Hub. The members of ELIXIR connect to the Hub with their national centres. The ELIXIR infrastructure is both scientific case driven, containing solutions required by various scientific projects or areas, and platform orientated, including training, tools, data, and compute. It has developed links to other existing infrastructures in the areas of storage, working closely with EUDAT, or networks, working with GÉANT. Currently, the potential components of the e- Infrastructure Commons are not integrated, not user friendly, not accessible and vary in terms of quality and capacity. However, there are plenty of useful components to build on, in the field of authentication and authorisation. The European Open Science Cloud seems to be a potential tool for the implementation of the e-infrastructure Commons. Kay Graf presented KM3NET, a deep-sea research infrastructure in the Mediterranean Sea. Astro particle physics uses detection techniques from particle physics to study astrophysical phenomena and different messenger particles: gamma, Cosmic Rays, and neutrinos. KM3NeT is part of the ESFRI Roadmap It is built as a Tier-like structure with mixed access, consisting of Grid and direct batch. KM3NeT has a Data Management Plan and an Open Data Policy in place. KM3NeT supports the creation of e- Infrastructure Commons in Neutrino Astronomy. A seed of such a system is already in operation through exchange of sky maps. Session 4: Networking aspects In the session on networking aspects, David Fergusson, Head of Scientific Computing at the Crick in the UK, presented a user view in the health sector on information assurance and AAI. The development of genomic and personalised medicine is having a profound effect on the biomedical research process. Increasingly biomedical researchers have to link data relating to different aspects of a disease and representing a broad range of scales. This means accessing, synthesising and analysing disparate data sources, some of which may have significant access restrictions. To do this, a new paradigm of results as a service is required. In order to support this demand, networks and data source providers need to be able to present a seamless access model. There is an increase in data requirements as sequencing is expected to increase rapidly and generate 100s of PB per annum within the next 5 years. Data can be divided into Sensitive and Identifiable Data and Complex Data. There is a change in the dynamic - solutions need to become data centric, not compute centric. This is because data problems are harder to deal with than compute problems, or data is hard and expensive to move. Moving into the Cloud could be an option. The Collaborative Data Centre - emedlab - is a unique, powerful centre to build, test, and deploy new infrastructure tools between organisations since it includes HPC where the data resides. Ann Harding from SWITCH pleaded for the need for higher information assurance and AAI to support data intensive research from the NREN perspective. SWITCHaai 2005 is a classic identity federation. An identity provider asserts authentication and identity information about users. Service providers check and consume this information for authorisation and make it available to an application. A group of organisations are coordinating identity and service providers that agree on a common set of rules and standards to build trust. No researcher works in isolation. At CERN a single paper can easily have 3000 authors. Assurance and trust in the identity federation involves classic Level of Assurance (LoA) approaches on national scales. The cost, scalability and demand are concerns. The key principle decisions about access need to be made by the service. Even where no LoA is officially supported, many criteria required by research groups are supported. It is difficult to identify person and roles in a unique way. Federated identity delivers scalable trust by having the responsibility for providing information closest to where it is created and managed. The Swiss edu-id approach takes this further, putting identity in the hands of the user and integrating attributes from other parties. Scaling assurance with detailed vetting processes over multiple jurisdictions remains a challenge but it is one with solutions now grounded in research needs. John Dyer from GÉANT considered in his talk whether acceptable use policies and connection policies are a help or hindrance for end-to-end research, innovation and the Open Science Cloud. The connection policy defines the conditions under which organisations are eligible to access and use the network and its services. There has not yet been undertaken an extensive survey and comparison of European NREN connection policies. If you connect to someone, they connect to you too and once connected, you normally accept all the traffic. There needs to be an acceptable use policy. The network may not be used by a user organisation or its members for any activity that may reasonably be regarded as unlawful or potentially so. Spring

16 The world and networking landscape is evolving rapidly. R&E networks need to adequately support all its user communities. The existing policies are significantly diverse. It constitutes a risk to follow the path of the lowest common denominator. So there is a need for solutions that serve all users, including high-end users that cannot be satisfied by the market. Fotis Karayannis from e-irgsp4 presented his vision for a one-stop shop marketplace. The idea of a marketplace for e- Infrastructure services is based on certain premises. It is a concrete step towards e- Infra services integration and towards the e- Infrastructure Commons This involves an integrated living ecosystem of resources and services which is open, user friendly and accessible to EU researchers, and is continuously adapting to user needs. The EU Open Science Cloud is part of the EU Digital Single Market related EC Communication. What is a marketplace for researchers? It is a place to find all the services they need with a service catalogue and/or store, both from e- Infrastructure and commercial service providers, and it forms an integral part of the e-infrastructure Commons/Open Science Cloud. Some examples are the UK GovDigital Marketplace; the HelixNebula AppStore on Cloud services; and major e- Infrastructure projects such as EGI and EUDAT, also working towards this direction. The main features are a single point of access or one-stop shop, a catalogue of services with a central registry, a search facility for easily finding relevant services, the use of common identity, authentication and authorisation schemes, both research and industrial ones and with Service Level Agreements. This marketplace is a first step towards the Commons and lightweight integration of e- Infrastructure services. There is some convergence already and it forms a great opportunity to deliver something beneficial for the users. The e-irg Workshop was concluded with a panel discussion between e-infrastructure providers moderated by Arjen van Rijn. Steve Cotter from GÉANT, Steven Newhouse from Helix Nebula, Tiziana Ferrari from EGI.eu, Florian Berberich from PRACE, Per Öster from EUDAT, and Paolo Manghi from OpenAIRE were the panelists. Steve Cotter said that as an e-infrastructure provider, one needs to improve the ease of use. Even after 30 years, networking is still hard. The requirements gathering should be done in collaboration, not just with other e- Workshop conclusions The building blocks of the e-infrastructure Commons have been presented several times but they need to be built further and become integrated towards the users. The providers in the panel share the same goals to best serve the users. The users are not interested in governance or funding models and they don t care if it is one or many organisations serving them. They want to solve their problems and currently it is still difficult to find their way. They want some sort of navigation in the services. e-irg is developing its new Roadmap which will include a landscape analysis and also the way to the future. It builds on top of the e- Infrastructure Commons, but also on other components. New developments and discussions including the European Open Science Cloud. e-irg will also consult ESFRI, as ESFRI consulted with e- IRG for its Roadmap. Infrastructures, but with their campus IT people and funders. With a common understanding, one can build integrated services. The separation between innovation and the operational aspect could lead to less innovation and commoditisation of e- Infrastructures. In the managing of e- Infrastructures, it is dangerous to place governance against competition. Competition should be encouraged. Steven Newhouse stated that the integrated Cloud services should include both the e- Infrastructure Commons with commercial Cloud providers able to serve researchers and consisting of rationalised, integrated services, as well as the European Open Science Cloud, built on the e-infrastructure Commons with commercial Cloud providers for different SLAs and services that enable Open Science. Tiziana Ferrari was convinced that the e- Infrastructure Commons are a necessary component of the Open Science Commons. Not only ICT services are needed but also policies and rules for access and funding. It should be complemented by Data-as-a- Service, instrumentation and knowledge. The challenges are to bridge data preservation infrastructures and computing; to share open tools, applications, scientific software, and research data in an Open Science platform; and to evolve from services to solutions involving multiple providers. Florian Berberich said that PRACE is prepared to join forces in outreach and involvement of user communities. There has been a networking session with EGI and EUDAT at ICT 2015 and the PRACE Scientific Steering Committee and User Forum are already in place. PRACE is also prepared to work on joint services to simplify usage of resources across infrastructures. The work should be based on real-life use cases. As examples Florian Berberich cited the Pilot Call for joint Tier-0 access and data storage services and resources, joint training events, and security for collaborating infrastructures. PRACE has a well-defined, unique business and funding model but exchange of experiences should be possible with regard to financial, legal, business development and procurement issues. Per Öster saw two challenges, namely integration and sustainability. EUDAT has created a B2 Enterprise Edition in order to compose and combine EUDAT technical services. EUDAT utilises the full potential of this B2 Enterprise Edition to create a partnership of sustainable organisations and develop this. In a European e-infrastructure, one has to agree on protocols, interfaces, identity management with HPC, Cloud, and networks. In European research one has to agree on policies, API, and methods with universities, libraries, digital publication actors, and service companies. This will help to create integration. On the financial side, one has to ensure multiple revenue streams for partners and partnership and on the societal side, one has to follow policies of 16 Spring 2016

17 governments, universities, libraries, and digital publication authorities in order to generate sustainability. Paolo Manghi explained that OpenAIRE supports the creation of an Infrastructure for Open Knowledge that would foster and facilitate the shift of scholarly communication towards making science open and reproducible. The goal is to have a collaborative and participatory approach at a European and global level and to link people, ideas, and technologies. Summary At the end of the e-irg Workshop, the e-irg Chair Sverker Holmgren, summarised the discussions. He said that the building blocks of the e-infrastructure Commons have been presented several times but they need to be built further and become integrated towards the users. The providers in the panel share the same goals to best serve the users. The users are not interested in governance or funding models and they don t care if it is one or many organisations serving them. They want to solve their problems and currently it is still difficult to find their way. They want some sort of navigation in the services. e-irg is developing its new Roadmap which will include a landscape analysis and also the way to the future. It builds on top of the e- Infrastructure Commons, but also on other components and new developments and discussions including the European Open Science Cloud. e-irg will also consult ESFRI, as ESFRI consulted with e-irg for its Roadmap. However, e-irg is not only about big infrastructures, but also researchers, i.e. the full span of e-infrastructures. Lastly, e-irg is composed of delegates from Member and Associated States. What is done at the EUlevel depends on the national and regional level. So there is a clear connection. This is also true for the users: as a researcher you want a coordination between national and EU systems.! The full workshop minutes, slides and video recordings of the presentations can be found on the e-irg website: e-infrastructures Austria During the e-irg Open Workshop, recently held in Belval/Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, we had the opportunity to talk with Paolo Budroni from the University of Vienna. Paolo Budroni is representing the Austrian Ministry of Science as a new member of the e-irg. The University of Vienna is one of the largest universities of the German-speaking countries. Since three years the University of Vienna is involved in e- Infrastructures. It started with the promotion of a nation-wide project called e-infrastructures Austria. The project goal was to create a network of institutions all over Austria. At this point in time all universities have been integrated into the network, except one, as well as the National Library and the institutions that are involved in research. The University of Vienna is addressing Research Infrastructures in the broader sense as well through ACOnet which is the backbone based at the University of Vienna. The university is running the largest computer centre of the country. The University of Vienna is also member of the Vienna Supercomputing Center in the initiative, called the Vienna Scientific Cluster. Paolo Budroni talked about three relevant issues with regard to e-infrastructures. The first one is the idea to consolidate the e- Infrastructure through all Austrian universities and institutions, including the ministries. In June 2016, there will be organized a oneweek workshop which has to be attended by each member of the e-infrastructures Austria with the participation of one representative from the computing centres and one representative from the libraries. A national survey has been run asking all Austrian researchers about their needs in the field of e-infrastructures. A report of 200 pages has been prepared. Now, Paolo Budroni's team has the data on which they can decide the future development of e- Infrastructures. About 10 percent of the scientists returned their answers for the survey which is also available in English.Paolo Budroni's team is also preparing a Letter of Intent. This is a written agreement between all computing centres and scientific libraries in Austria in order to push the idea of the e- Infrastructures. In December 2015, a Task Force at national level has been established with the funding bodies, the Ministry of Science, the computing scientists and the libraries to create a White Paper on how to deal with research matters for the future. The Austrian Ministry of Science is taking a systematic approach, starting with the basics and trying to create a wave on which to ride for the next initiatives. With regard to e-irg, Paolo Budroni finds it interesting to know that there is a supranational reference point at the European level. He hopes that e-irg will become a knowledge think tank that will give impulses to all the initiatives. Another issue are the policies on how to deal with research data and the long tail of data. The University of Vienna is running a Horizon2020 project, called LEARN which stands for LEaders Activating Research Networks, about data management policy with the University College of London, the Liber Association and the University of Barcelona. The results will be available in 2017.! v=grbthmfwmry Spring

18 ICT2015 Networking session Future direction of global research and e- infrastructures landscape in e-irg/ ESFRI organized network session Around 35 persons filled the small room to its maximum capacity during the networking session on "Policy Aspects of Research- and e-infrastructures of Global Scale" that was jointly organised by e-irg and ESFRI during the ICT 2015 event in Lisbon on 22 October The session consisted of six short five minutes presentations followed by an interactive part. Fotis Karayannis (e-irgsp4 and Str-ESFRI) introduced the background for organising the session and its objectives. For large Research Infrastructures (RIs) it is necessary to collaborate at international scale due to the complexity, high-construction and operation costs or the global nature of the challenges that have to be addressed. The objectives of the session were to present and discuss the latest policy aspects in RIs and e- Infrastructures with emphasis on cross-cutting issues such as access to data. Yannis Ioannidis (ATHENA Research Center and University of Athens, ESFRI delegate) presented the conclusions from the 2014 International Conference on Research Infrastructures (ICRI 2014). ICRI 2014 was organised by the European Commission and the Greek EU Presidency in Athens on 2-4 April 2014 and was attended by 763 participants from over 60 countries. Yannis Ioannidis presented the ICRI 2014 conclusions on requirements. These requirements are inclusive for truly global RIs and Open Access to data. The latter requirement implies access, use, reuse for now and in the future; accessibility, comprehensibility, assessability, and revisability; data network development; training and free mobility of staff; security and privacy; and public and commercial interest balance. The conclusions on the way forward included encouragement of global cooperation in RIs; coordination with ESFRI and Group of Senior Officials (GSO) with the global research infrastructure (GRI) framework endorsed by all interested countries; GRI goals to be agreed up-front through the international roadmap, a decision-making process and legal framework, the possibility for each nation to make its own decisions and have conflict resolution, technology integration via innovation of partnerships with industry; and sustainable funding via business models and long-term funding. ICRI 2016 will take place in Cape Town, South Africa on 3-5 October 2016 and will address GRIs essential for grand challenges and as innovation hubs, the development and sustainability of global and regional RIs, and the way towards an international roadmap. Juan Bicarregui (STFC and RDA) introduced the GSO activities and report. The Group of Senior Officials (GSO) on GRIs was established in 2008 at the G8 Ministerial meeting in Okinawa to provide a non-binding and open forum for policy exchanges on GRIs, to inform and improve international cooperation, to share information about existing and planned new RIs and to establish principles for the development of new partnerships and collaborations. The GSO mandate was renewed in 2013 at the G8 meeting in London where Global Challenges, GRIs and Open Scientific Research Data were addressed and where it was concluded that scientific research data should be open. The GSO report was issued in October 2015 just before the network session. It describes successively the mandates given by the G8 Ministers, a Framework for RIs of global interest, the Landscape of RIs of global interest, policy areas, new initiatives of relevance for GSO (e.g. RDA), and future actions for the GSO (e.g. new collaborations and case studies). A list of 48 GRIs is provided in an Annex. The GSO has set up a number of subworking groups to tackle the following policy areas: promoting access to RIs, access to data and data management, alignment of evaluation criteria and prioritisation processes, life cycle issues, and legal framework for GRIs. The G7 ministerial meeting in Berlin in October 2015 stated on GRIs that "further progress on sharing and managing scientific data and information should be achieved, especially by continuing engagement with community based activities such as the Research Data Alliance RDA" and that "the GSO is encouraged to continue their work on convergence and alignment of interoperable data management that could accomplish an effective open-data science environment at the G7 level and beyond". Yannis Ioannidis explained in his second presentation that in May 2015 the Competitiveness Council gave to ESFRI the mandate to explore mechanisms for better coordination of Member States investment strategies in e-infrastructures also covering HPC. Since the e-irg consists of experts in e-infrastructures ESFRI has invited e-irg to participate in this endeavour that will take place during the next 12 months. A working group will be formed and it is expected that the e-irg Chair will have a prominent role. Key is that the working group will work on investment strategy, not technology strategy. The outcome might have impact for Europe as a whole but also for the individual Member States that might have to change their strategy. Arjen van Rijn (NIKHEF and e-irg) introduced the e-infrastructure Commons vision of the e-irg which is described in the e-irg White Paper It is an ecosystem of ICT services for scientific research where users enjoy the freedom to choose the services they need from a mix of public e- Infrastructure and commercial services; where providers have the freedom to innovate, and which is attained through a joint strategic 18 Spring 2016

19 effort between users and primary strategic actors and suppliers. Arjen van Rijn presented the recommendations for the different strategic actors. International user groups (ESFRI and other RIs) have to define their e- infrastructure strategy. International e- Infrastructure organisations have to join forces. National governments and funding agencies should fund an innovative and sustainable national e-infrastructure, and empower and fund user communities. The European Commission has to encourage and facilitate innovation, and empower international user groups. The existing e- Infrastructure providers should innovate or perish. Finally Arjen van Rijn invited the audience to join the discussion on the progress of the e- Infrastructure Commons at the e-irg workshop, Luxembourg, November 2015 and at the e-irg workshop, Amsterdam, 9-10 March 2016, in conjunction with the ESFRI 2016 Roadmap Launch also in Amsterdam. The last presentation was by Rosette Vandenbroucke (VUB and e-irg) on the European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures. This is an EC document that defines principles and guidelines to be used as a reference when defining access rules and conditions for access to RIs. The document, however, has no legally binding nature. The stakeholders involved in the creation of the Charter included besides the EC: e-irg, ESFRI, EARTO, LERU, CESAER, EUA, Nordforsk, and Science Europe. Rosette Vandenbroucke explained the procedure that had been followed by the EC, ESFRI and e-irg to create the Charter which included several sessions with all stakeholders. She ended the presentation with the lessons learned. Positive aspects were that the definition of the charter with cooperation between stakeholders was very well received, that it was written by a selected group of three, and that the consultation in different phases worked well. Negative aspects were that it is difficult and takes much time to reach complete consensus and that the danger is that the content becomes too general. The Charter is a European Charter but it is also applicable to global RIs. Marcin Ostasz (BSC and e-irgsp4) moderated the interactive part of the networking session. In summary, the participants came to the conclusion that the separation between RIs and e-infrastructures is getting blurred. There are opportunities for RIs that are maturing. In the next years new governance structures are bound to emerge which have to be managed carefully. Sustainability is important. For the consolidation of the policies, the focus will be on e-infrastructures but there will be some links with the new Centers of Excellence too. It was agreed that the new working group will report to the Digital ERA Forum as well. Important keywords are trust and dealing with legacy, but workflows are also important for researchers. Plans to include discussions of policies of access for the private sector have been addressed in the Charter of Access, in an e-irg White Paper and in a report by the e-irg Task Force on Legal issues. It is not easy in practice though and should be dealt with at the European level. It might be used at the e- IRG workshop in Amsterdam. Finally, the open science movement is global as it is addressed by RDA and also by other groups in the US and the EC.! /299419/Report+of+the+networking +session++%e2%80%9cpolicy+aspects+of +Research-+and+e-Infrastructures+of +Global+Scale%E2%80%9D++at+ICT pdf Turkey to prepare itself for European Open Science Cloud During the e-irg Open Workshop, recently held in Belval/Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, we had the opportunity to talk with Mehmet Mirat Satoglu from ULAKBIM, the Turkish Academic Network and Information Center. Mehmet Mirat Satoglu is a new member to the e-irg. He is the Director of TUBITAK, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. TUBITAK supports services and projects for infrastructure. There are two main centres in Turkey. On the one hand, TUBITAK deploys the network infrastructure connection for all the universities in Turkey. For high performance computing there are again two centres. One of them, Istanbul Technical University, is a member of PRACE. The other one is the ULAKBIM Computing Center,. ULAKBIM has a system of cores. This system will be upgraded in the next year. The type of machine that is located in Istanbul consists of tightly integrated, shared-memory processors. From the moment that there is any funding available, this system will be upgraded. From the data viewpoint, there is an OpenStack data site. There is a collaboration going on with EUDAT and RDA. In October 2015, there was an Open Access Conference in Turkey where participants worked on research data management in order to be better prepared for the European Open Science Cloud initiative. The organizers were several consortia in Turkey. For e-irg, Turkey is working on a national roadmap which will be ready in a year. As far as the e-infrastructures are concerned, Mehmet Mirat Satoglu will align the Turkish e- Infrastructure policy to the guiding directives presented by e-irg. Turkey wants to be part of the overall e-irg e-infrastructure initiatives and is looking for more cooperation and collaboration in order to see which answers are available.! JMZ4 Spring

20 Observations from the 7th RDA Plenary in Tokyo Fotis Karayannis, e-irgsp4 Hosted and co-organised by the Japan Science and Technology Agency the 7th Research Data Alliance (RDA) Plenary meeting took place in Tokyo, Japan on 1-3 March 2016, 3 years after the first RDA plenary. It was attended by around 400 persons and it was the first RDA event in Asia. By now RDA has almost 4000 individual members, 1870 of which come from Europe, and 45 Organisational Members out of which 20 EU ones. The 7th RDA Plenary was preceded by an Open Symposium on Data-driven Science - The trigger of Scientific development, which was held in Japanese and English (with translation). The Symposium presented the status of affairs in Japan, paradigms from other regions such as Europe and USA, the opportunities engaging with RDA and benefits and trends in Open Science. The theme of the 7th Plenary was Making data sharing work in the era of Open Science and the programme included the usual Working/ Interest/BoF Group meetings mixed with plenary sessions. Major areas of plenary sessions included the presentation of the latest RDA outputs/recommendations, as well as adoption stories from EU and USA. Regarding the WG/IG/ BoF meetings, around 55 sessions took place, either as stand-alone or joint (cross) WG/IG meetings. RDA has currently more than 25 WGs and 45 IGs. It is reminded that WGs have a limited duration of 18 months and have to produce concrete outputs, while IGs act more as discussion fora, in some cases preparatory for WGs, and do not necessarily have to produce outputs. During the RDA plenaries the corresponding governance bodies meet too, including the RDA Council, the Technical Advisory Board (TAB), the Organisational Assembly (OA) - all RDA Organisational Members - and Organisational Advisory Board (OAB), and the RDA Secretariat. The TAB meets also with the WG/IG Chairs to discuss organisational and procedural issues. In Japan the RDA Funders Forum - an informal group of potential or actual funders - met to discuss the RDA future and its sustainability. The same topic was also discussed at the RDA Council, while the RDA OA and OAB discussed the value and return on investment in OA engagement, its role in reviewing outputs and also a potential role on coordination across regions. The next (8th) RDA Plenary will take place in Denver, Colorado, USA, September, as part of the 1st International Data Week, collocated with SciDataCon conference - a more traditional paper-based conference around data in research. International Data Week 2017 is jointly organised among ICSU-CODATA, RDA and ICSU-WDS and will also feature an International Data Forum, bringing together the two communities of RDA and SciDataCon. The 9th RDA Plenary comes back to Europe and will take place in Barcelona, Spain, 5-7 April 2017 organised by Barcelona Supercomputing Centre with the support of RDA Europe project.! seventh-plenary/programme.html -trigger-scientificdevelopment.html Collaboration between e- Infrastructure projects As a first results there were joint posters at the RDA conference in Tokyo. At ICRI2016 in South-Africa a detailed booklet will be presented.! Several European projects that originated from the same series of calls have started a collaboration to jointly communicate about their projects goals and results. The e-irgsp4 project that supports e-irg is part of it. 20 Spring 2016