Welcome and Coffee Break

Official Opening by TU Graz Rectorate

The Ascent of Open Science and the European Open Science Cloud

Open science is becoming more and more part of the daily practice in conducting science. Around the world, researchers are increasingly aware of the value and importance of open science. As scientific research becomes highly data-driven and dependent on computing, scientists are conscious of the growing need to share data, software and infrastructure to reduce wasteful duplication and increase economies of scale. In an ideal world, every step of the research process would be public and transparent – the full methodology and all the tools used, as well as the data, would be accessible to the public and all groups without restriction, enabling reproducibility and refinement by other scientists. This presentation will show case a number of success stories indicating how federated digital infrastructure, that have been sustained by the member states and the European Commission, have become an indispensable tool to enable collaboration and sharing. The European Open Science Cloud was launched by the European Commission in 2016 aiming to (1) increase the ability to exploit research data across scientific disciplines and between the public and private sector, (2) interconnect existing and new digital infrastructures in Europe and (3) support open science. After 3 years from the launch the EOSC-hub project (https://www.eosc-hub.eu/) - the first and the largest of the EOSC implementation projects of the H220 funding programme, has succeeded in delivering some of the building blocks like the EOSC portal and Marketplace, tools and processes for federating data and services providers, harmonized policies, a federated AAI infrastructure, Competence Centres to support research infrastructures in their complex digital needs, interoperability guidelines and the Early Adopter Programme to provide expert support and service capacity to research projects. The presentation will conclude with an overview of the EOSC roadmap towards a fully operational entity.

Towards FAIR data: what’s FAIR and what’s unfair?

Who hasn't heard about FAIR? FAIR data has become the new buzzword within research communities: funders, publishers, research institutions... all require that researchers make their research data FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable. But what do researchers think about FAIR? What does FAIR really mean to them in practice? I will use a case study from TU Delft to talk about institutional support for FAIR data and reflect on some FAIR and unFAIR approaches to support the research community in their transition to the FAIRer world.

Coffee Break

Towards the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC): Reflections on a Local Basis for Domestic Infrastructures

In November 2018, the European Commission launched the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) at the University of Vienna. The EOSC is a process of making research data in Europe accessible to all researchers under the same conditions of use and usage; it gives a strong push in Europe towards a culture of open research data that are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR); it fosters networking within the existing European data infrastructures, integrating high-capacity cloud solutions, and in due course, widening the scope of these services to include users from the public sector and industry. Understanding the EOSC structure is a first step in recognizing the opportunities offered by the newly launched EOSC. This presentation offers some reflections for a better understanding of the realization of the EOSC at the present stage, including the activities of the newly established EOSC Secretariat and the so called “5b-EOSC Supporting Projects” (with special focus on EOSC Pillar).

Paving the Way for Adopting FAIR Data in a University

Researchers are being aware of the need to share their research data but there is still a lot of misinformation about how to do it. Universities should provide information, training, infrastructure and services to make it possible. It is not just a question of posting some spreadsheets in a repository it goes far beyond. The FAIR principles set some criteria that can be followed by researchers and institutions to reach the ultimate goal: to have research data publicly available to be reused by others to reproduce results and to build upon them.

Lunch Break

Researcher-led FAIR Services at TU Graz

Researchers’ perspectives on Research Data Management (RDM) are diverse and often discipline specific, but there are many issues which occur across contexts. This talk will discuss TU Graz’s researcher-led approach to implementing FAIR data services, as part of the Digital TU Graz project, to: (i) enable FAIR data through efficient research data management, (ii) develop state-of-the-art disciplinary and cross-disciplinary tools and services and (iii) boost the impact and reputation of TU Graz by increasing international visibility and re-usability of research. The talk will detail and reflect upon progress-to-date at TU Graz, from knowledge-gathering (survey/interviews) and policy development to the conception and implementation of open source tools including InvenioRDM and CyVerse.

Panel Discussion: How FAIR are data in industry?

Closing Notes