e-IRG Workshop under French EU Presidency

EOSC focuses on the data layer and related services, and has not dealt at a great extent with the underlying e-Infrastructures (e.g. computing, networking) that provide essential services to EOSC. The full EOSC service delivery model, besides the EU level, includes also the national and institutional levels. Thus, a close collaboration between EOSC and the underlying e-Infrastructures is required for the sustainability analysis of EOSC. The EOSC sustainability analysis should assess the “data market” and estimate the costs of both the data infrastructure/services and the underlying storage and computing infrastructure costs. This includes both capital and operational costs and the very important component of the growing energy costs along with the projection for the infrastructure growth.
This session is jointly organised between the EOSC Steering Board and e-IRG, following a first meeting between representatives of the two bodies, who reflected on these topics. e-IRG has links to all the e-Infrastructure layers (networking, computing, data) and can contribute to the EOSC sustainability and the required analysis, which includes all the involved levels, i.e. institutional, national, (regional) and European ones. Given the EOSC shift towards an operationalised and procurement-based environment, understanding the data market and underlying costs is essential.
The goal of this session is to raise awareness on the required sustainability analysis in the e-Infrastructure community and make the first steps in this area, shedding some light on the above elements, with the aspiration that e-IRG recommendations on policies coming out of such an analysis and work, can be brought to the EOSC SB for implementation.

Questions for the four breakout groups:
1. Do you see important gaps in the European policy landscape for e-infrastructures apart from the policy issues under discussion (skills and competences, EOSC and the private sector, data sovereignty) at the EOSC Steering Board?
2. Which are the most crucial elements to consider when preparing policies on these topics?
3. What’s the most appropriate way to influence the national and European policy landscape?
4. How can good practices or failures on developing and implementing policies at national level help progress implementation by other MSs and ACs? And how a European-wide implementation benefits all users?