FAIR Data, FAIR Services, and the European Open Science Cloud

Dear Colleagues,

In November 2018, under the Austrian Presidency, the European Commission launched the      European Open Science Cloud at the University of Vienna. The EOSC is not a dedicated infrastructure or software package, it is a process of making research data in Europe accessible to all researchers under the same conditions for use. The initiative aims to give a strong push in Europe towards a culture of open research data that are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), thereby allowing all European researchers to engage in data-driven science.

The EOSC envisions interlinking 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. Efforts focussing on the development of sustainable collaborative ecosystems, as foreseen by the EOSC, are particularly directed towards Data Culture, Research Data Services, Federated Architecture and co-Funding.

This special issue, timed to coincide with the “Focus on FAIR data and the European Open Science Cloud” workshop taking place in Graz, Austria on November 7^th 2019, aims to critically examine these developments from multiple perspectives. Here, we welcome contributions that seek to investigate how increased interoperability, transparency, and accessibility of processes and data could aid scholarly publishing to best serve the needs of scholarship and wider society. Equally, critical views that engage with the benefits of ‘closed’ or proprietary systems are encouraged. Our intention is to increase the critical discourse surrounding this rapidly evolving landscape, and we encourage submissions from the global research community.

This issue especially welcomes contributions that address the following:

• FAIR Data and Services as drivers of e-Research and digitisation of science
• Common culture of data stewardship [stewardship of European research data]
• Data culture, openness and funders policies [how some jurisdictions and research funders have moved to supporting the internet of FAIR Data and services. Issues related to collaborative international funding of FAIR Data]
• Perspectives from outside Europe, complementary or divergent approaches
• Reward and citation systems [Researchers, that make research data open and FAIR should be rewarded for this]
• FAIR Data, Research Institutions, industrial collaboration and society: values beyond research
• The non-trivial challenge to set up machine actionable Data Management Plans [key elements]
• Exploiting the translational power of e-Research: ‘Data sharing’ versus ‘data visiting’
• Global legal and ethical challenges in a world of FAIR Data and Services
• FAIR Data: End users’ needs, minimal standards of interoperability [technical, semantic, legal, organisational]
• Certification of FAIR Services
• Social, political, and economic arguments for the different aspects of ‘FAIRization” of data

Dr. Paolo Budroni
Mr. Wouter Schallier
Ms. Barbara Sánchez
Mr. Gultekin Gurdal
Ms. Ilkay Holt
Mr. Paul Walk
Guest Editors

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