Since the end of the last century, Open Science has been seen as a tool to increase the efficiency and quality of research and, at the same time, as a way to address the complex problems of today’s society. Over the last decade, the value of well-described and readily available research data has been embraced on a pan-European level by the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative; its ambition is to comprehensively address the issue of working with research data.
A key concept of this initiative is so-called “FAIR data”, i.e. data, that are searchable, accessible, well described and therefore interoperable, and with clear conditions of their further use. FAIR data are not open in the absolute sense but are prepared to be readily used by an interested party – a scientist that meets the access conditions.
The EOSC Initiative Further Encompasses:
- Technological, programme and procedural framework that supports systematic work with research data based on the federated principle.
- Pooling and provision of capacity for long-term storage of the data.
- Tools and environment for (easy) data management, controlling access to the data, including analyses and linkage to other data.
The federated principle allows independent development, advancement and maintenance of the EOSC initiative’s individual components based on a consensus regarding key standards and interfaces. This does not create a single “correct” repository but rather connects the components into an integrated whole.
A national node of this European initiative is currently being established in the Czech Republic, which aims to promote good practice in research data management across the scientific community based on the federated principle. To this end, the Architecture of the implementation of the EOSC initiative in the Czech Republic aims to establish the so-called National Data Infrastructure (NDI) – a common platform for sharing, managing and accessing data and computing resources for research purposes. The implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in the Czech Republic through the NDI will therefore support both scientific and multidisciplinary research activities across a wide range of scientific fields and disciplines.
Key Elements of the Implementation:
- EOSC CZ Working Groups (EOSC CZ WG)
- EOSC CZ Secretariat
- National Metadata Directory (NMD)
- EOSC CZ Training Centre
- National Repository Platform (NRP)
- Interconnecting the existing thematic/disciplinary data repositories into a common National Data Infrastructure (NDI)
- Human resources or upskilling of academic and research institutions that are gradually introducing research data management
The key mechanism for the support and development of the EOSC initiative in the Czech Republic on the national level are the calls Individual System Projects – Research and development I (so-called IPs calls) and Open Science I to III from the Operational Programme Johannes Amos Comenius (OP JAC) from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS).