Czech Experts in Leadership of EOSC Association Task Forces

The new reorganization for the 2024–2025 period has brought significant changes, including the involvement of fourteen Czech representatives, two of whom have joined the leadership of a task force.

Jiří Marek, Head of the EOSC CZ Secretariat, has been appointed Vice-Chair of the Technical and Semantic Interoperability Task Force, focusing on connecting users with data and services within the EOSC Association. Petr Holub has been named Vice-Chair of the Health Data Task Force, which addresses the interoperability and use of health data in research in alignment with FAIR principles.

The EOSC Association also includes two other task forces: FAIR Metrics and Digital Objects and Long-Term Data Retention. To achieve the goals of all four working groups, representatives from major scientific and academic institutions in the Czech Republic will contribute their expertise, including:

• Charles University
• Masaryk University
• VSB – Technical University of Ostrava
• Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
• CESNET
• Czech Academy of Sciences
  

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Interview with Czech Representatives in EOSC Association Working Groups Leadership:

What importance do you attach to interoperability within the European research area, and what are your goals in this working group?

🗯️Jiří Marek: I am delighted to contribute to the development of interoperability within the European research area (EOSC). EOSC aims to enhance the connection between users, data, and services, which is crucial for the effective sharing of scientific information. This connection is becoming increasingly important as the FAIR management of scientific data becomes a standard in modern scientific practice. I believe that the outcomes of the Technical and Semantic Interoperability Working Group will have practical applications at both the European and national levels.

How do you envision your involvement in the working group, and what significance does access to medical data have for the development of artificial intelligence, which you specialize in?

🗯️Petr Holub: Medical data are the focus of numerous activities aimed at their standardization (e.g., ISO, HL7, and other standardization bodies) and accessibility. My goal is to find ways in which EOSC can effectively support the use of medical data in scientific research. Access to these data is essential for training AI models, which advance medicine and its outcomes in treatment.

Also in the previous period 2021-2023 we had a Czech representative in the leadership of the Task Forces. Jana Broncová represented the AAI Architecture Task Force - the Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure Architecture Task Force, which aims to provide a consistent architecture for authentication, authorization and access control for EOSC.

The involvement of these experts in the leadership of working groups highlights the significant role that the Czech Republic plays in the European scientific community, contributing to the development of data sharing and utilization at the European level.