national nodes– getting organised; how far are...

http://e-IRG.eu/catalogue/eirg-1006e-Infrastructure Reflection Group

National Nodes – Getting organised; how far are we?

Implementing e-Infrastructure Commons and

the European Open Science Cloud

Table of ContentsIntroduction 5

Background 7

Reflections on the National Nodes landscape 11

Reflections on the National Nodes landscape 12

National e-Infrastructure landscapes, coordination and governance 13

Funding for national e-Infrastructures and access policies 15

Integration of vertical (domain-specific) with national horizontal(generic) e‑Infrastructures 16

Deliberations 17

Good Practices 18

Conclusions - Recommendations 21

Members States/Associated Countries 21

European Commission 24

References 25

Non-Conflict of Interest 26

Colophon 27

Glossary 28

Annex 1 - Extended landscape analysis 29

Answers to Question 2a 29

Answers to Question 2b 33

Answers to Question 2c 38

Answers to Question 2d 41

Answers to Question 3 43

Annex 2 - National node survey template 45

National Nodes – Getting organised; how far are we?

Implementing e-Infrastructure Commons and

the European Open Science Cloud


Dear reader,

with this document e-IRG is responding proactively tothe Council Conclusions on the European OpenScience Cloud of May 2018, which CALL [..] to makeoptimal use of ongoing projects, existing expertiseand knowledge available via existing initiatives, suchas ESFRI, eIRG, GO FAIR and others.

e-IRG is a recognised strategic body composed ofnational delegates to facilitate integration in the areaof European e-Infrastructures and connectedservices, within and between Member States, at theEuropean level and globally. This e-IRG policydocument addresses the role of the national nodes -including their coordination with the thematic ones -in the implementation of the e-InfrastructureCommons and its instantiation as the EuropeanOpen Science Cloud (EOSC). This document thuscovers both the situation within and betweenmember states and should be considered as asnapshot at the time of publication. e-IRG isoverlooking the whole e-Infrastructure spectrum,from networking and computing to data and otherservices (such as middleware, software and relatedtools/services), covering not only short-term but alsolonger-term aspects, advising both Member Statesand the European Commission. Thus, the documentcovers all e-Infrastructure components, withemphasis on governance, funding and access policies.It should be noted that e-IRG does not undertake any

operative role or implementation mandates, e.g.within EOSC or EuroHPC and keeps an advisory role.

The EOSC initiative is intended to comprise policydecisions as well as the concrete implementation tosupport the Open Science policy the Europe Unionand its Member States or Associated Countries havecommitted to.

Today, in May 2019, the degree to which different e-Infrastructures are coordinated and madeinteroperable within the entire e-Infrastructurelandscape at national and international level varieshitherto heavily from country to country in Europe.e‑IRG advocates an interoperable, federatedecosystem of domain-specific (vertical) ResearchInfrastructure and generic (horizontal) e-Infrastructures already at national level, which willfacilitate the European level federation, such as inthe form of EOSC.

Gabriele von Voigt

e-IRG Chair

IntroductionCollaboration on e-Infrastructures at theEuropean scale is essential to support pan-European research efforts.This is manifested e.g.by the fact that recent developments like theEuropean Open Science Cloud (EOSC)1 andEuroHPC2 attract a lot of attention. Pooling andfederating resources at European level doeshowever require a significant effort. Generic e-Infrastructures offering their services towards allcommunities/disciplines (called also “horizontal”)are normally structured, funded and governed atnational or sometimes even sub-national/regionalscale. Also, there are many European/international, but also national, sub-national oreven local community/discipline-specifice‑Infrastructures (called also “vertical” or“thematic”) that may or may not collaborate withthe generic initiatives at different levels.The focusof this document is to analyse how this complexlandscape is built today and to providerecommendations on how it can be furtherdeveloped to fulfil the expectations on the futurecollaborative European e-Infrastructure system.

In 2012, e-IRG introduced the notion of thee‑Infrastructures Commons, an open ecosystemof resources and services along with its policiesand governance for scientists to facilitate

research and science. This laid thee‑Infrastructure foundation for the EuropeanCloud Initiative EC Communication3 published in2016, introducing EOSC and the European DataInfrastructure (EDI). EOSC was defined as thetrusted, open environment for the scientificcommunity to store, share and re-use scientificdata and results and the EDI is built from fastconnectivity, high-capacity cloud solutions andsupercomputing capability systems.

After the publication of its Roadmap in 2012,e-IRG turned its attention to the organisation ofe-Infrastructure at the national level, later quotedin the EU Competitiveness Council conclusionson EOSC4, which also called on the relatedexpertise and knowledge of initiatives such ase‑IRG.One of the main conclusions of e-IRG wasthat coherent national building blocks or“national nodes” were essential for thedevelopment of federated European initiatives.The current national e-Infrastructure landscape ishowever richer and more complex than that.Notonly is there a difference between countries, butalso the way funding and governance ofe‑Infrastructure and research resources ingeneral is organised in a country differs and hasan impact on how collaborative efforts can be setup. Also, when it comes to access to resourceswithin the national nodes, which could beexclusive and / or competitive (e.g. in case of

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“ e-Infrastructures Commons, an openecosystem of resources and services along with itspolicies and governance for scientists to facilitate

research and science.”

computing cycles), the national access modelsbecome important factors to be considered inthe realisation of pan-European collaborativeinitiatives like the EOSC.

Rather than only describing the role of nationalnodes within the e-Infrastructure Commons, inthis report e-IRG presents an inventory of howe-Infrastructures are governed, operated,financed and accessed at the national level.Thisinventory was based on a questionnaire (seeAnnex 2 - National node survey template), whichwas used by the e-IRG national delegates toprovide information for their country. For thesurvey, the e-IRG delegates were assumed tointerface with relevant key stakeholders in thecountry. The resulting inventory provides anaccount of the current e-Infrastructure landscapein the 29 Member States (MS) and AssociatedCountries (AC) that answered the questionnaire.The process also involved an iterative approachto refine the data and classifications of thedifferent countries.

The document also presents an extended analysisof the inventory (see Annex 1 - Extendedlandscape analysis) and examples of goodpractices, which are indicators of ongoingcoordination activities within countries or on theregional level. Based on the analysis and theidentified good practices, recommendations are

provided on how to overcome the currentfragmentation at the national, regional andEuropean level and support pan-Europeaninitiatives like the EOSC.

The mission of e-IRG5, as a neutral strategicadvisory body on e-Infrastructure policies,composed of national representatives appointedby the relevant Science/ Research ministries/agencies, is to facilitate integration in the area ofEuropean e-Infrastructures and connectedservices, within and between Member States, atEuropean level and globally.This document dealswith both the “within” (national) and the“between” or across Member States (thematic,regional, EU and beyond) and should beconsidered a snapshot at the time of publication.e-IRG is overlooking the whole e-Infrastructurespectrum, covering not only short-term but alsolonger-term aspects, advising both MemberStates and the European Commission. It shouldbe noted that e-IRG does not undertake anyoperative role or implementation mandates, e.g.within EOSC or EuroHPC.

BackgroundScientific research across an ever-growingspectrum of scientific disciplines/domains isincreasingly reliant on the continuous generationand streamlined analysis of vast amounts of data.The curation, analysis, sharing and re-use of suchdata requires the availability of suitablee‑Infrastructure services, such as high capacitynetworks, advanced computing resources, large-scale data repositories, software/middleware, aswell as digital tools and advanced user support. e-IRG has been using the metaphor of theCommons for a coordinated and coherent set ofsuch e-Infrastructure resources and servicesalong with related policies, which promotecollaboration opportunities. The notion of thee‑Infrastructure Commons6 was initially presentedin the e-IRG Roadmap 20127 and furtherdeveloped in the e-IRG White Paper 20138 and thee-IRG Roadmap 20169.

The e-Infrastructure Commons can be defined asthe integrated living ecosystem of resources andservices (along with its policies and governance)that is open, user friendly and accessible toEuropean researchers and scientists, andcontinuously adapts to the changingrequirements of research and science.

The e-IRG White Paper 2013 referred to the keyrequirements for the future e-InfrastructureCommons ecosystem, which are theinteroperability and gradual integration of thee‑Infrastructures services. A further proposaltowards the e-Infrastructure Commons waspresented by the e-IRG Support Programme in2014, with the document A marketplace fore‑Infrastructure services10.

These efforts contributed to the definition of the“European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)” in2015, as a vision of the European Commission ofan infrastructure to support and develop openscience and open innovation in Europe andbeyond. However, the approach foreseen for theEOSC implementation is mainly “federative”rather than “integrative”.The implementation ofthe EOSC is expected to facilitate the vision ofOpen Science and become Europe’s virtualenvironment for all researchers to store,manage,analyse and re-use data for research, innovationand educational purposes.

Since then a series of documents towards theimplementation of EOSC have been publishedand the instantiation of the e-InfrastructureCommons via EOSC is well underway.Despite itsinitially vague definition, EOSC is understood asthe virtual environment for researchers to findand use all the tools they need to do their work,

6 7

“The e-Infrastructure Commons can be defined asthe integrated living ecosystem of resources and

services (along with its policies and governance) thatis open, user friendly and accessible to Europeanresearchers and scientists, and continuously adaptsto the changing requirements of research and

science.”

coordinating between horizontal and vertical(domain, thematic or discipline specific) e-Infrastructure components and services underone umbrella. This does not refer to a singlephysical environment, rather a whole ecosystemwith multiple components of both horizontal andthematic services at national and European levels.The ongoing process towards the envisionedEOSC implementation within the next few yearsis based on the successful coordination andfederation of such national and European/thematic research infrastructures, includinge‑Infrastructures. In other words – the EOSC canonly be as strong as its national and thematic (i.e.domain-specific) building blocks. Coherent andefficient coordination mechanisms among serviceproviders, as well as robust and sustainablefunding mechanisms that can enable scalable andlong-term development, evolution and operationof national and European e-Infrastructures andResearch Infrastructures are the key factors forrealising the EOSC.

The EOSC should thus evolve into an ecosystemof national and thematic views or abstractions ofthe EU-level services, possibly with extra servicesavailable at national, regional or thematic levelsand/or a subset of the EU services based on theparticipation of a national constituent in EU orthematic initiatives and Research Infrastructures

or possible restrictions at national/ regional/thematic levels.

The e-IRG Roadmap 2016, aiming at turning thevision of the e-Infrastructure Commons intoreality by 2020, provided a list ofrecommendations to all stakeholders. Two ofthese recommendations are directed at nationalgovernments and funding agencies, namely thatthey should reinforce their efforts to:

• embrace e-Infrastructure coordination at thenational level and build strong nationale‑Infrastructure building blocks, enablingcoherent and efficient participation in Europeanefforts, especially in alignment with the FAIRprinciples concerning data and services;

• analyse and evaluate their nationale‑Infrastructure funding and governancemechanisms, identify best practices, andprovide input to the development of theEuropean e-Infrastructure landscape.

The Competitiveness Council of the EuropeanUnion in its conclusions on “The transitiontowards an Open Science system” has in May2016 advocated the need for concerted actions inrelevant national, EU, multilateral and internationalfora to make Open Science a reality11.

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“ Need for concerted actions in relevantnational, EU, multilateral and international fora to

make Open Science a reality.”

The notion of the e-Infrastructure Commons

Already the first High-level Expert Group on theEuropean Open Science Cloud, although focusedon the data aspects of Open Science,recommended in its report Realising the EuropeanOpen Science Cloud12 to take immediate, affirmativeaction on the EOSC in close concert with MemberStates. The European Commission initiated thedrive towards the EOSC realisation with a seriesof initiatives and documents in 2017, including theEOSC Summit13 and the EOSC declaration14,which was supported by a list of signatories/coalition of doers15, one of which was e-IRG.

In 2018 the EC adopted the Commission StaffWorking Document (SWD) ImplementationRoadmap for the European Science Cloud16. TheSWD document covers 6 main areas namely a)architecture, b) data, c) services, d) access &interfaces, e) rules and f) governance. It alsoincludes the implementation measures as part ofHorizon 2020. Projects like EOSCpilot17 (EOSCpreparatory action), eInfraCentral18 (servicecatalogue), OpenAIRE-Connect19 (OpenAIREoutreach to communities), EUDAT20

(collaborative data infrastructure services) andthe European plug-in of the Research DataAlliance (RDA-Europe)21 had been alreadycontributing to EOSC components and the openscience, open data sharing principles before 2018.Authentication and Authorisation for ResearchCollaborations is also a vital component for

EOSC and the AARC project series22 madesignificant steps in this direction. In 2018, themajor EOSC integration project, EOSC-hub,started, bringing together EGI23 (advancedcomputing services for research), EUDAT andINDIGO - DataCloud24 (software services forscience), along with other key projects likeFREYA25 (on persistent identifiers) and theOpenAIRE-Advance26 (consolidating OpenAIREservices towards EOSC).

In May 2018, the Council in its Conclusion on the“European Open Science Cloud” recalls27 that thecreation of the EOSC, which is the infrastructuresupporting the implementation of Europe’s OpenScience policy, lies in the joint responsibility of theEuropean Commission and the Member States,taking into account the involvement and support ofthe stakeholders and highlighted that theimplementation and further development should […]take into account already established practices byresearch communities, ESFRI ResearchInfrastructures, e-Infrastructures as well as otherrelevant national infrastructures”.

Furthermore, the Commission and the MemberStates were invited to jointly explore the creation of amap of national research data infrastructures andinitiatives in the Member States which could befederated [...]. The Council also “agrees that theEOSC model should be based on a pan-European

federation of data infrastructures in order to beflexible and adaptable to changing needs of thestakeholders with regard to enabling this federationof national and European data infrastructures,ENCOURAGES Member States to invite their relevantcommunities, such as e-infrastructures, researchinfrastructures, Research Funding Organisations(RFO’s) and Research Performing Organisations(RPO’s), to get organized so as to prepare them forconnection to the EOSC and CALLS ON theCommission to make optimal use of ongoing projects,existing expertise and knowledge available viaexisting initiatives, such as ESFRI, eIRG, GO FAIR andothers; ”.

An initial version of the EOSC portal along withthe bootstrapping EOSC governance wasofficially launched28 in November 2018, while in2019 the EOSCsecretariat.eu project29, alongwith a series of EOSC Cluster projects frommajor thematic areas also commenced. It is clearthat the level of coordination required among allthe above efforts, including plain communication,is vast, and the importance of interplay betweennational, EU and thematic efforts is key for EOSCsuccess.This was recently confirmed by the EOSCGovernance Board (GB), who requested as apriority aWorking Group on national initiatives(LandscapeWG). It also became evident that themember states and associate countries participatingin the EOSC GB were very diverse in their state of

engagement with EOSC, but even more diverse in thestate of their national policy development orimplementation towards Open Science or OpenData30. In the same blog, it was stated that anessential success factor of EOSC will be the level ofengagement and funding that will be investednationally. Recently, a series of new EC-fundedprojects on EOSC national initiatives wereapproved namely EOSC-Nordic, EOSC-Pillar,EOSC-Synergy and NI4OS-Europe, which canconsiderably contribute towards thedevelopment of policies and their alignmentacross countries within their regions andthroughout Europe. In addition, the projectFAIRsFAIR31 will address the promotion of FAIRprinciples and building competencies within theresearch communities.

All the above clearly show that the work done bye-IRG with this paper (and possibly via a live-document in the future) can substantiallycontribute towards the EOSC GovernanceBodies work in the upcoming period.

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Bulgarian Minister Krasimir Valchev,chairing the May 2018 Competitive Councilmeeting at which the e-IRG was mentioned.

See page 11. (Picture adapted fromfootage of the related press conferenceprovided by EU Council press services.)

1st EOSC Board meeting (Picture: Burgelman)

Reflections on theNational NodeslandscapeThe e-IRG has conducted a landscape analysisof national e-Infrastructures in Europeancountries.The aim was to map the national e-Infrastructure landscapes, understanding thecurrently existing organisational structures,as well as funding mechanisms, access policiesand the level of coordination betweengeneric and domain-specific e-Infrastructureservices.With this knowledge as the basis,the e-IRG sets out to abstract some of theongoing efforts and good practices towardsthe realisation of the e-InfrastructureCommons in Europe.

All of the 32 Member States and AssociatedCountries represented in e-IRG were askedto provide information about:

1. the horizontal (generic) nationale‑Infrastructure organisations,

2. the coordination mechanisms amongthese,

3. their governance,

4. how these e-Infrastructures are funded,

5. their access policies and

6. their coordination with vertical (domainspecific) e-Infrastructures.

As of May 2019, a total number of 28 e-IRGMember States have submitted responseswith varying levels of detail, corresponding toapproximately 60% of all 44 EU MemberStates and Associated Countries. As ofFebruary 2020, there are 29 responses.

Following an agnostic analysis of thee‑Infrastructure landscape in Europeancountries, it is observed thate‑Infrastructures in the national publicresearch sector are composed vastlydifferent in the different countries.There areunique cultural and historic traits that explainwhy the European e-Infrastructurelandscapes is different and diverse. Allabstractions made in this European e-Infrastructure landscape analysis shouldtherefore be viewed as holistic views.

It should be noted that the classifications made inthis document are best estimates and a first

attempt to come up with a picture of the EUcomplex landscape, which may not always beaccurate and the authors acknowledge that it ispart of the discussion.

National e-Infrastructurelandscapes, coordination andgovernance

In most e-IRG member countries thelandscape of national generic e-Infrastructure-providing organisations consists of more thanone, and often even more than three or fourdistinct entities. There are, however, a fewexamples where one single organisation isresponsible for the entire national e-Infra-structure service portfolio, either as a singlephysical entity or as a virtual umbrellaorganisation. In many cases, each of thenational e-Infrastructure organisationsspecialize on distinct e-Infrastructureservices, such as either high-capacitynetwork for science and higher education,advanced computing resources, orsometimes generic large-scale datarepositories.There are cases where severaldistinct organisations may provideoverlapping national e-Infrastructureservices.On the other hand, the horizontal e-Infrastructure-providing entities in many ofthe countries have established functional

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Countries that responded to the e-IRG survey

“ As of May 2019, a total number of 28 e-IRGMember States have submitted responses

corresponding to 60% of all 44 EU Member Statesand Associated Countries.”

mechanisms for coordinating the provisioningof related e-Infrastructure services amongstthemselves. Still, it is not always easy to findout how these mechanisms have beenmotivated and if they are pushed by theinitiatives themselves or by external top-down initiatives originating in e.g. ministriesor research councils. In some of thecountries there are currently ongoingprocesses to improve and further developthe existing national e-Infrastructurelandscape and coordination mechanisms.

Observations:

• The number of e-Infrastructure providersper country varies from a single organisationin a few countries to multiple providers ofthe different horizontal e-Infrastructurecomponents. Large countries usually havemultiple providers, while smaller countrieshave fewer.A situation of multiple providersmay lead to competition, and in all casesrequires coordination at the national level,either bottom up (initiated by the providersthemselves) or top-down (imposed byministries or research councils).

• The more complex the national ecosystem,the more challenging the coordinationtowards the European constituents and

initiatives.

The governance of horizontal national e-Infra-structure-providing entities is vastly differentamong the countries: ministries/researchcouncils, universities and researchcommunities are represented to varyingdegrees at both the structural ownershiplevel (i.e. who is the “owner” of theorganisation) and at the strategic governancelevel, (i.e. who is responsible for the day-to-day management usually exercised byprioritizing boards).A clear trend is observedin the structural ownership level of network-provisioning e-Infrastructure entities, whichappears to be less dispersed than forcomputing-, data- and other e-Infrastructureservice-provisioning e-Infrastructure entities.A concentrated ownership directly by theministries in the case of networking-providing e-Infrastructures is motivated byhigh development costs and the criticality ofnational high-capacity networkinfrastructures. Similar attempts andintentions are experienced with respect tothe HPC facilities of the e-Infrastructures.Another trend (although less pronouncedand not the case for all countries) isobserved for all types of horizontal e-Infra-structures at the strategic governance levelfor the prioritizing boards, where

representatives from universities andresearch communities participate to a largerdegree than what is the case at the structuralownership level.

Observations:

The governance of e-Infrastructure providersvaries significantly inside and across countries.The structural ownership of networkingorganisations usually lies with a higher-authorityorganisation such as a ministry, while for othere‑Infrastructure providers the situation is moredispersed. The strategic governance level is inmany cases exercised by boards withrepresentatives from universities or researchcentres or other experts.

Once again, the more complex the governance atnational level, the more challenging thecoordination within the country and towards theEuropean constituents and initiatives.

Funding for national e-Infrastructures and accesspolicies

In most of the countries funding for thenational high capacity network and genericadvanced computing resources appears to bechannelled directly from the ministries

and/or the research councils. A few casesexist where these kinds of services areadditionally co-funded through user fees,usually imposed at the institutional orresearch infrastructure/centre of excellencelevel.While funding for national horizontallarge-scale data repositories and othere-Infrastructure-related services often alsoinvolves direct financing from ministries,there appears to be significant additionalfinancing from participating researchinstitutions and project-based funding inmany e-IRG member countries. In few casesthe funding for national e-Infrastructureproviders also (partly) involves EU structuralfunds.This is typically the case in countrieswhere a considerable percentage of availablestructural funds are consciously spent forstrengthening competitiveness.

Observations:

• Funding of e-Infrastructure providers is lessdispersed than other cases (i.e. governance,integration with vertical e-Infrastructures,etc.). In most countries, networking andcomputing providers are funded by ministries(and research centres) given the high budgetsinvolved, and in fewer cases this involves userfees or EU structural funds. Datainfrastructures involve more ad-hoc or

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“The more complex the governance at nationallevel, the more challenging the coordination withinthe country and towards the European constituents

and initiatives.”“The number of e-Infrastructure providers percountry varies from a single organisation in a few

countries to multiple providers.”

project-based funding.

• The funding landscape appears to be lesscomplex than other cases. However,sustainability of national providers with moread-hoc funding such as data infrastructuresmay be complicated, which may have animpact at their European constituents andinitiatives.

• EU funding for specific projects – aside fromnetworking / GÉANT – is used for severalcomponents of the e-Infrastructurelandscape, especially for the newcomponents, such as data, and other services.

Access for national horizontal e-Infra-structure services for research and highereducation in most e-IRG member countriesare free for the end-users, but strictly limitedto national users. Access for researchers toadvanced computing resources sometimes(but not always) involves a peer-reviewprocess. In most of the countries, users fromthe private sector can also request access toadvanced national generic computingresources (in most cases for research or pre-commercial use), but the access is oftenlimited to a regulated quota and requiresunsubsidised levels of user fees.

Observations

• Similar to funding, access is also lessdispersed than other cases. In mostcountries, access to the national resources isrestricted to national users, while there aresome cases, especially in computing, where afraction of the resources is allowed tointernational users or collaborations (e.g. viapeer-review).

• Although access appears to be less divergingacross countries, in most cases it is restrictedto national users or only a fraction is openfor European or international initiatives orvirtual organisations. This may have asignificant impact at the Europeanconstituents and initiatives.

Integration of vertical (domain-specific) with national horizontal(generic) e‑Infrastructures

Most of the countries describe thatcoordination of vertical (domain-specific) e-Infrastructures with horizontal (generic) e-Infrastructures is facilitated to some degree.However, structured processes for this typeof actions seems to be rare. Even if to dateonly very few cases exist where funding fromvertical e-Infrastructures is channelled to the

coordinated use of horizontal e-Infrastructures, it is worth noting that inabout half of all e-IRG member countriessome co-operative mechanisms do in factalready exist to coordinate the interplaybetween these e-Infrastructure axes.

Observations

• Coordination of vertical (domain-specific)e-Infrastructures with horizontal e-Infra-structures is facilitated to some degree, yetwith ad-hoc and not structured approaches,while funding is usually not channelled fromvertical to horizontal e-Infrastructures.

• Coordination of vertical with horizontale-Infrastructures is rather ad-hoc at nationallevel, which also has an impact at Europeanlevel integration.

Deliberations

The development of coherent, efficient andstructured coordination mechanisms amonghorizontal and vertical e-infrastructureservice providers, easy access to data andinteroperable services, as well as establishingrobust and sustainable funding mechanismsthat can enable scalable and long-termdevelopment and operation of national and

European e-Infrastructures andinfrastructures are at the heart of realizingthe e-Infrastructure Commons in Europe.The presented landscape analysis of nationale-Infrastructures shows that although thereare vast differences among e-IRG membercountries, there are some clear trends thatare already in line with the recommendedactions towards the e-InfrastructureCommons, such as:

• A broad user involvement at the strategicgovernance level of national horizontale-Infrastructures through representativesfrom the universities and researchcommunities.This kind of inclusiveness is tobe strengthened and widened in the future.

• Unstructured or ad-hoc mechanisms tocoordinate the interplay between nationalhorizontal and vertical e-Infrastructures doexist in several e-IRG member countries.Similar, or, if possible, more structured andmore conscious attempts and efforts are tobe gradually introduced in as many aspossible e-IRG member (and EOSC partner)countries.

• In most e-IRG member countries the fundingfor national horizontal large-scale datarepositories and e-Infrastructure services

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other than network and advanced computingresources, largely involves user-fees andproject-based funding in addition to basicfunding from the ministries, research counciland in some cases also the universities.

• A few of the e-IRG member countriesmention interesting mechanisms and ongoingprocesses to improve and further developthe existing national e-Infrastructurelandscape and coordination mechanisms.Theexperiences from the work with suchnational processes should be collected andshared among European countries to developbest practices for the way forward towardsthe e-Infrastructure Commons. The costsharing models and practices applied byGÉANT and PRACE are also to be taken intoconsideration in the development of thewidely applicable coordination, business andfunding models and practices. Althoughperfect uniformity throughout Europe ispractically impossible with respect to thiscoordination and financing of the e-Infrastructure development and operation,harmonization among the countries is to beattained.

Good Practices

The following examples of good practicesillustrate how some of the countries coordinatetheir e-Infrastructure efforts within a countryand on regional level:

• France –The National Plan for Open Science

• Germany – The National Research DataInfrastructure

• Italy – Italian Computing and DataInfrastructure as a coordination mechanism

• Nordic countries – Nordic e-InfrastructureCollaboration

This list is neither complete nor comprehensivebut gives distinct examples of coordination atnational or regional level.Three of the exampleswere presented at the open e-IRG Workshopunder Austrian Presidency32 in November 2018(presentations online available).

France has published a National Plan for advancingOpen Science. The plan is concentrated around 3main areas:The first one is to generalise OpenAccess to publications, i.e. making open scientificpublishing the standard approach as soon aspossible. The second is to structure Research

Data to comply with the FAIR principles(Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable)and make it available through Open Access. Inaddition, France supports RDA and its bestpractices on research data.The third one is to bepart of a sustainable European and internationalOpen Science dynamic. This refers to France’sparticipation in Open Science infrastructures andinitiatives (such as EOSC, OpenAIRE and RDA),but also to the development of relevant skills,certification programmes and Open Sciencepolicies within the country, and its researchinstitutions.

The German approach to establish a NationalResearch Data Infrastructure (NationaleForschungsdaten Infrastructure - NFDI)33 is anexample for the coordination between thefederal states (Länder) and the federalgovernment in Germany to establish a nationalinfrastructure despite the distributed structureof responsibilities and funding34. The main ideawith NFDI is to bring together users andresearch data providers, so that their data will besustainably available and re-usable acrossresearch disciplines. This will create completelynew opportunities for innovation. The FederalGovernment and the federal states will providesignificant funding for the establishment andsupport of the NFDI during a 10-year period.TheNFDI will be made up of scientific consortia

coordinated by a Directorate and a ScientificSenate. It aims of make the German sciencesystem better interconnected and internationallycompetitive. This will facilitate the evolutiontowards EOSC, offering the potential to be acore element and important actor in itsdevelopment and in further internationalcooperation.

The Italian Computing and Data Infrastructure(ICDI)35,36 brings together different nationalresource and service providers to take acoherent position of the Italian researchcommunity aiming to improve coordination inorder to make efficient use of the resources andsupport high quality research. ICDI acts as abottom-up coordination structure, aiming atpromoting synergies between Italian ResearchInfrastructures and e-Infrastructures, andcoordinating the Italian participation in nationaland international initiatives and programmes. Inparticular, ICDI aims at contributing in thecreation of national strategies and at harmonisingItalian participation in EOSC and EDI, optimisingavailable resources and facilitating prioritizationand sustainability. In addition, ICDI fosters thedevelopment of a national and European datanetwork, based on data producers and on thevarious service levels offered by ResearchInfrastructures, R&E networks and advancedcomputing centres. ICDI is a good practice of a

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loose coordination structure facilitated via anMoU among major research organisations. TheItalian Ministry of Education, Universities andResearch participates as an observer, but has agreat interest in this initiative, especially if it cancontribute elaborating the national positions tothe EU initiatives.

The fourth example shows how the NordicCountries are anchored in the regional Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration (NeIC),which couldbe seen as a paradigm of cross-country regionalcollaboration and coordination in the provisionof e-Infrastructure services and resources. Itshould be noted that the national nodes in theNordic countries are sufficiently well developedto allow for cross-Nordic collaboration. Still,almost all of the underlying e-Infrastructureresources are very much national (in terms offunding, governance and access).NeIC37 facilitatesthe development and operation of high-quality e-Infrastructure solutions in areas of joint interestamong the Nordic countries. NeIC is adistributed organisation consisting of technicalexperts from academic institutions across theNordic countries.

Conclusions -RecommendationsThe e-IRG survey has delivered one of the firstreasonably extensive descriptions of the e-Infra-structure field in European countries. However,the answers provided have to be very carefullyinterpreted and by no means e-IRG will claimthat every question has been interpreted andanswered by each delegate in exactly the sameway.Therefore, any attempt from the authors toderive conclusions and recommendations mustbe handled with care. e-IRG is perfectly aware,that simple categorisation and counting does notdo justice to the survey results. One overridingconclusion is indeed that the (organisation of the)national e-Infrastructure landscape variesconsiderably between the countries!

With this disclaimer e-IRG hereby tries andformulates recommendations, directed as inearlier e-IRG publications to e-IRG’s main targetaudiences:Member States /Associated Countriesand the European Commission.

Members States/AssociatedCountries

e-IRG safely concludes, that in a sizeable numberof European countries, the various cornerstonesof e-Infrastructure development and provisioning(computing including HPC,data, networking), thatoften have differing histories and are used to actquite independently, have increased the level ofcoordination between themselves. There is alarge variety in how this takes place. In somecountries a ministry plays a central role, in othersthis is devolved to a Research Council or to aseparate provisioning organisation or orga-nisations.

There is also a variety in how universities andresearch institutions have a stake in the e-Infrastructure provisioning. This ranges fromloosely-coupled forms to formal memberships ofthe provisioning organisations or even a share-holder position.

Funding streams to e-Infrastructure organisationsalso vary considerably, with again direct fundingfrom ministries and/or through research councils,EC funding (either for dedicated e-Infrastructureprojects or as in the case of GÉANT acontribution to basically every NREN in theMember States/AC). This is usually

20 21

complemented with user fees and in some casesthird party revenues.

With regard to the challenging intersection ofgeneric and discipline specific e-Infrastructureservices, a few countries have providedinteresting information on funding: these concernmechanisms whereby Research Infrastructuresapplying for funding from the national Roadmapfunds are obliged to include an e-Infrastructureparagraph (and budget) that they need to havediscussed in advance with their nationalhorizontal e-Infrastructure provider(s). Thisclosely resembles the way in which ESFRIRoadmap proposals need to provide informationon the handling of their ‘e-Needs’. Furthercoordination across funding streams ofhorizontal and vertical e-Infrastructures withinthe countries appears increasingly important.Theoverall coordination of the two within acommon framework or structure such as EOSCneeds to be encouraged by both sides.

Discussion

National e-Infrastructure organisations have apivotal role in the European context.They are onthe one hand the link to the national universitiesand research organisations (and thereby crucial inreaching the long tail of science) and on the otherhand the link to the European provisioning

organisations, either through memberships orother forms of participation.

In the vision of e-IRG the (generic part of) theEOSC service provisioning will consist of thefederation of these national e-Infrastructureorganisations. We therefore underline theimportance of our earlier recommendation:

Members states and associatedcountries should continue toincrease the level of coordination

between and consolidation of the variousnational players on e-Infrastructureprovisioning.

We note that given the variety observed in thissurvey, we refrain from advising a particularinstantiation for such increased coordination:there is no one size that fits all.

With regard to the important interplay betweene-Infrastructure provisioning (including datamanagement) by research communitiesthemselves (‘discipline specific’) and the genericprovisioning organisations,we note that there arestill limited experiences on how to organise this.Generic e-Infrastructures have the potential ofbeing efficient and effective, pooling hardwareand software but more importantly people andexpertise together. In the long run e-IRG believes

that strong generic infrastructures will serve theultimate goal of the EOSC, offering professionalsin science and technology a virtual environmentwith free at the point of use, open and seamlessservices for storage,management, analysis and re-use of research data, across borders and scientificdisciplines.

Important issues to be discussed in connectionto national policies include coordinatedgovernance of service delivery, life cyclemanagement for services, and coordinatedfunding streams for investments and operations.e-IRG believes that the funding system mustfacilitate the right incentive structure to improvethe current situation. Such funding structure mayconsist of a balanced mix of base funding for theinnovation and exploitation of the (national)e-Infrastructure, funding by users derived fromservice delivery by the providers and top upfunding based on (national) priorities for(demanding and well organised) researchcommunities. And to not forget the Europeancontext: funding mechanisms should include howto provide access to the national services forcross border research collaboration. This leadse‑IRG to recommend that:

Member States and AssociatedCountries should explore, pilot andinstall funding schemes, which

1. give the incentive to both researchcommunities and provisioningorganisations to collectively optimizee-Infrastructure service development andprovisioning;

2. enable easy cross border researchcollaboration.

22 23

“ Members states and associated countriesshould continue to increase the level of coordinationbetween and consolidation of the various national

players on e-Infrastructure provisioning.”

“ Member States and Associated Countriesshould explore, pilot and install funding schemes,

which1. give the incentive to both research communities

and provisioning organisations to collectivelyoptimize e-Infrastructure service development and

provisioning;2. enable easy cross border research

collaboration.”

European Commission

Although our analysis is primarily targeted at theMember State/AC level, there are someobservations that are important for theCommission. In e-IRG’s earlier policy work(White Paper 2013, Roadmap 2016) e-IRG hassummarized the role of the EC to “develop thenecessary harmonised scope, framework andinstruments for improving ResearchInfrastructures, including e-Infrastructures interms of operations, innovation andsustainability”.

It is evident that in order to reach the goals of theEOSC, most of the resources need to bemobilised at the national level.This is why e-IRGconsiders it of the utmost importance to reachstrong national e-Infrastructure coordination,because the EOSC will be most likely thefederation of national (and thematic) OpenScience Clouds.

Furthermore, when e-IRG advocatescoordination and consolidation at the nationallevel, this must also find its counterpart at theEuropean level. A future EOSC governanceshould enable this.

E -IRG therefore recommends, that infutureWork Programmes the ECprovides strong incentives for further

coordination and consolidation of e-Infrastructure service development andprovisioning at the national and the Europeanlevel.

The private sector has to play a role in thisendeavour. Users are already enjoying privatesector resources and tools, and integration ofsuch services into the EOSC portal andmarketplace should be promoted by the EC.

24 25

“e-IRG therefore recommends, that in futureWork Programmes the EC provides strong incentives

for further coordination and consolidation of e-Infrastructure service development and provisioning

at the national and the European level.”

References1 https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=open-science-

cloud2 https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/eurohpc-joint-undertaking3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/

?uri=CELEX:52016DC0178&from=EN4 https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/eurohpc-joint-undertaking5 http://e-irg.eu/mission6 http://e-irg.eu/commons7 http://e-irg.eu/documents/10920/12353/e-irg_roadmap_2012-final.pdf8 http://e-irg.eu/catalogue/eirg-10039 http://e-irg.eu/catalogue/eirg-100210 http://e-irgsp4.e-irg.eu/documents/11836/299419/e-

infrastructure+services+marketplace-v1.4-30-10-2015.pdf/11 https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-9526-2016-INIT/

en/pdf12 https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/

realising_the_european_open_science_cloud_2016.pdf13 http://ec.europa.eu/research/index.cfm?eventcode=44D86060-FBA1-

1BD1-9355822B162BB0EE&pg=events14 https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/

eosc_declaration.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none15 https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/

list_of_institutions_endorsing_the_eosc_declaration.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none

16 https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/swd_2018_83_f1_staff_working_paper_en.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none

17 https://eoscpilot.eu/

18 https://einfracentral.eu/19 https://www.openaire.eu/openaire-connect-project20 https://eudat.eu/21 https://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-europe22 https://aarc-project.eu/23 https://egi.eu24 https://www.indigo-datacloud.eu/25 https://www.project-freya.eu/26 https://www.openaire.eu/openaire-advance-project27 http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-9029-2018-INIT/

en/pdf28 https://eosc-launch.eu29 https://www.eoscsecretariat.eu/30 https://www.eoscsecretariat.eu/EOSCblog-EB-2019March131 https://www.fairsfair.eu/32 http://e-irg.eu/workshop-2018-11-programme33 http://e-irg.eu/documents/10920/446704/1_NFDI_presentation_e-

irg.pdf34 https://www.nature.com/news/the-secret-to-germany-s-scientific-

excellence-1.2256335 e-irg.eu/documents/10920/446704/ICDI-+e-

IRG+Workshop+Vienna+20-21Nov18-Ruggieri-Valente+V3.pdf36 https://www.icdi.it/en/37 https://neic.no/

25

Non-Conflict of InterestThe e-IRG policy document “Implementing e-Infrastructure Commons andthe European Open Science Cloud - National Nodes - Getting organised;how far are we?” is adopted by the e-IRG plenum, which is composed of 62national delegates representing the science community and the relatedministry of 32 Member States and Associated Countries.

The members of the e-IRGWorking Group on the National Nodes and thesupporting members of the e-IRG Support Programme have declared andsigned Non-Conflict of Interest statements.

26

ColophonAcknowledgments

This e-IRG document was prepared by an e-IRGWorking Group supportedby the e-IRG Support Programme based on input from the e-IRG delegates.It was adopted on 2019-05-22.

All e-IRG delegates collected national information for their country.

Editors

Sverker Holmgren (Co-Chair of theWorking Group, e-IRG Delegate forSweden)Arjen van Rijn (Co-Chair of theWorking Group, e-IRG Delegate for theNetherlands)Ulrike Jaekel (e-IRG Delegate for Norway)Josva Kleist (e-IRG Delegate for Denmark)Gabriele vonVoigt (e-IRG Chair, e-IRG Delegate for Germany)

Fotis Karayannis (e-IRG Support Programme)Michael Maragakis (e-IRG Support Programme)JanWiebelitz (e-IRG Support Programme)

Layout and DesignAd Emmen and LeslieVersweyveld (Genias Benelux BV, e-IRG SupportProgramme)

Persistent identifier (use this as reference):http://e-irg.eu/catalogue/eirg-1006

ISBN: 978-90-823661-6-7

The data in this document is also available in an interactive version on thee-IRG Knowledge Base portal pages:http://knowledgebase.e-irg.eu/national-analysishttp://knowledgebase.e-irg.eu/national-maps

This document was produced by the e-IRGSP6 project for e-IRG.e-IRGSP6is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovationprogramme under grant agreement No 823761

.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0International License.

Version 1.1 - 2020-03-03

e-IRG secretariat

c/o Dutch Research Council (NWO)attn. Naomi Messing (project officer secretariat e-IRGSP6)P.O. Box 93460NL-2509 ALThe HagueThe Netherlandsemail: [email protected]

27

GlossaryAARC Authentication and Authorisation for Research CollaborationsAC Associated Countrye-IRG e-Infrastructure Reflection GroupEC European CommissionEDI European Data InfrastructureEGI Advanced Computing Services for Research

ELIXIR Intergovernmental organisation that brings together lifescience resources from across Europe

EOSC European Open Science CloudESFRI European Strategy Forum on Research InfrastructuresEU European UnionEUDAT Collaborative Data InfrastructureFAIR Findable,Accessible, Interoperable, ReusableFAIRsFAIR Fostering FAIR Data Practices in Europe

FREYA Connected Open Identifiers for Discovery,Access and Use ofResearch Resources

GB Governance Board

GÉANT Pan-European data network for the research and educationcommunity

GO FAIR Initiative that aims to implement the FAIR principlesHPC High Performance ComputingHTC High-throughput ComputingICDI Italian Computing and Data Infrastructure

INDIGO-DataCloudSustainable European PaaS-based cloud solution for e-Science

MS Member StateNeIC Nordic e-Infrastructure CollaborationNFDI Nationale Forschungsdaten Infrastructure

NI4OS-EuropeNational Initiatives for Open Science in Europe

NN National NodesNREN National Research and Education Network

OpenAIRE EC-supported initiative to foster Open Science in Europe inorder to accelerate research and boost innovation

RDA Research Data AllianceRFO Research Funding OrganisationsRI Research InfrastructureRPO Research Performing OrganisationsSME Small and Medium-sized EnterpriseSWD StaffWorking DocumentUK United Kingdom

28

Annex 1 - Extended landscapeanalysisIt should be noted that the classifications made in this document are bestestimates and a first attempt to come up with a picture of the EU complexlandscape, which may not always be accurate and the authors acknowledgethat it is part of the discussion.

The tables and pictures in this document reflect the answers received to thequestionnaire and the interpretation by the authors. Answers can be tracedback to a country questionnaire answer but may not always be complete andfully representative.

Answers to Question 2a

Question 2a:Describe which organisation or organisations havebeen given the responsibility at the national level forprovisioning e‑Infrastructure services in your country. If theanswers contain multiple organisations, describe (if applicable)how these organisations coordinate their activities amongstthemselves.

Analysis

The European landscape of e-Infrastructures is as diverse as its cultures andethnicities. One cannot opt for a single scenario for all countries, or enforcean “apply in all cases” solution when it comes to the existing, or future,organisation scheme of all Member States and relatedAssociated Countries.

There exist a number of countries, which have more than one, or even few,national provisioning organisations.We distinguish between four types of e-Infrastructures:1. Networking,2. Computing,3. Data, and4. Other Services.

In most of the 29 countries that supplied related information, there exists aprovisioning organisation that offers two or more types of e-Infrastructure(for example networking and computing, or networking and services) andone (or more) additional one(s) offering data, computing or other servicese-Infrastructures. In some cases, this organisation of the first case (with twoor more types of e-Infrastructure) is the major one in the country, whileothers specialise in a specific type, or part of it.

In order to analyse the European landscape, we divide countries into genericcategories with similar characteristics. More specifically, and concerning onlythe number of provisioning organisations that exist, we classify them intothree categories:

Category A has only one provisioning organisation that provides all typesof e-Infrastructures in the country.

Category B has two or three such organisations, with or without anoverlap.

Category C has four or more organisations, and in many cases with anoverlap between them.The resulting table on page 31 (left) and infographicon page 32 show how Europe looks like, with regard to the number ofnational e-Infrastructure providers.

29

Countries of category A obviously need only to internally coordinate theirown e-Infrastructures. However, this classification does not stop thecountries of categories B and C from having a well-defined and establishedcoordinating structure and a clear division of duties between theseorganisations. For this purpose, in the case where multiple nationalorganisations exist in a country, we requested the coordination of theactivities between them to be described. Based on these replies, mostEuropean countries show some level of coordination with specific rulesbetween e-Infrastructure provisioning organisations, and fewer report thatthere is no direct coordination structure, or loose coordination rulesbetween such organisations. See the table on page 31 (right) and infographicon page 32.

It is worth noting that some countries show steps of significant improvementas far as coordination is concerned in the last months, and that in severalcountries there are ongoing processes even now. For example, Italy hasinitiated a dialogue and through it, Research Infrastructures and e-Infrastructures have decided to create a National Coordination Group: theItalian Computing and Data Infrastructure (ICDI). Other examples ofcountries where recent steps to improve coordination were reported wereCzechia and Norway.

30 3131

Icons Coordination level Countries

Well-definedcoordination structurewith specific rulesbetween provisioningorganisations reported,or single majororganisation in thecountry.

Bulgaria, Czechia,Denmark, Estonia,Finland, France,Hungary, Italy,Lithuania, Luxembourg,the Netherlands,Norway, Portugal,Slovenia, Sweden,Switzerland,Turkey

Not well-establishedcoordination structurereported, or loosecoordination rules.

Austria, Belgium,Bosnia & Herzegovina,Croatia, Germany,Greece, Latvia, Serbia,Spain,Ukraine

Reply requiring furtherclarifications to classifyor no reply

Poland, UK?

Category Icon Number of horizontalprovisioning

Countries

A Only one majorprovisioningorganisation providingthe major e-Infra-structure services in acountry

Denmark,Hungary,Turkey

B Two or threeprovisioningorganisations providingthe major e-Infrastructure servicesin a country

Bosnia &Herzegovina,Bulgaria,Croatia,Czechia, Estonia,Finland, Greece,Latvia, Lithuania,Luxembourg,theNetherlands,Poland, Serbia,Slovenia,Sweden,Switzerland

C Four or moreprovisioningorganisations providingthe major e-Infra-structure services in acountry

Austria, Belgium,France,Germany, Italy,Norway,Portugal, SpainUkraine

Reply requiring furtherspecifications or noreply

UK

Number of horizontal provisioning organisations at national level (question 2a)

Coordination at national level (question 2a)

?

32

Answers to Question 2b

Question 2b: Describe the governance of this organisation/these organisations (such as: legal entity, composition of boardor council, representation of stake-holders, such as universities,research infrastructures, funding agencies, etc.).

Analysis

In order to analyse the governance of the e-Infrastructures in acountry, the specifics of each country must be well understood. Astrong example of this is the fact that in many countries there is aministry which owns part of or the entire e-Infrastructureprovisioning organisation. However, the same ministry may delegatethe strategic governance to a board that is entirely (or in its largerpart) composed of members of the Academic and the ResearchInstitutions of that country.

It is obviously of great importance for the governance of any Europeanlevel e-Infrastructure to be fully aware of how its national buildingblocks are governed. It is actually important to know what kind oforganisation is the one taking decisions concerning the strategy to befollowed.

The same conclusion holds for all individual types of e-Infrastructure(Networking, HPC, Data, Other Services). The results for eachindividual country are presented per e-Infrastructure type,respectively, in pages 34 – 37.

33

?

question 2b-networking question 2b-computing

Governance ofNetworkinge‑Infrastructure

34 35

Organisation type Countries

Ministry or ResearchCouncil

Hungary

Research Institutions orUniversities

AustriaBelgiumBulgariaCzechiaDenmarkGreece

LatviaLuxembourgNorwayPolandSerbia

SpainSwedenSwitzerlandthe NetherlandsTurkeyUkraine

Mixed case (strategicmanagement ofe‑Infrastructure thoughcollaboration of bothprevious kinds)

CroatiaEstonia

FinlandFranceGermany

ItalyPortugalSlovenia

Further specificationneeded

Bosnia &Herzegovina

Lithuania UK

4%

59%

30%

7%

Governance ofComputinge‑Infrastructure

26%

37%

33%

4%



BelgiumCroatiaHungary

LatviaLuxembourgPortugal

Spain


AustriaBosnia &Herzegovina

Czechia

Ukraine

DenmarkGermany

GreeceItaly

LithuaniaNorwaythe NetherlandsTurkey


BulgariaEstoniaFinland

FrancePolandSerbia

SloveniaSwedenSwitzerland


UK

question 2b-data question 2b-Other services

Governance ofDatae‑Infrastructure

36 37



Hungary Italy


AustriaBulgariaCzechiaDenmark

GreeceNorwayPolandSpain

SwedenSwitzerlandthe NetherlandsTurkey


BelgiumCroatiaEstoniaFinland

FranceGermanyLatvia

PortugalSerbiaSlovenia


Bosnia &Herzegovina

LithuaniaLuxembourg

UKUkraine

7%

44%

37%

11%

Governance of“Other Services”e‑Infrastructure

7%

56%

30%

7%



Hungary


AustriaBulgariaCzechiaDenmarkGreece

LatviaLithuaniaLuxembourgNorwayPoland

SloveniaSpainSwitzerlandthe NetherlandsTurkeyUkraine


BelgiumCroatiaEstonia

FinlandFranceGermany

PortugalSweden


Bosnia &Herzegovina

Serbia UK

Analysis — Computing

The category computing comprises all kinds of computing ranging fromGrids and cluster computing to high-performance computing.

In most countries computing is at least partially funded through nationalministries and research councils. Several of them list this type of funding astheir main source. Many countries mention that their only (Austria), orsignificant additional funding comes from stakeholders and user communities.Some mention EU Structural Funds use for financing compute resources, orreport about subsidies from the EU for computing activities.

:

38 39

Answers to Question 2c

Question 2c: Describe how this organisation/theseorganisations are funded (main funding streams, such asministries, research councils, grants, subsidies, third parties(industrial, other), membership contributions, usercontributions, etc.).

Analysis — Networking

Nearly all countries (with the exception of Bosnia and Herzegovina) haveestablished an NREN providing networking services for research. Themajority of these NRENs is funded by the corresponding ministries orresearch councils. Funding from the Research Council is taken from theResearch Council’s operational budget and not subject to competition.Additionally, in some cases membership fees or stakeholder (universities andresearch institutions) and user contributions provide a major funding stream.Furthermore, in some countries users provided services fees (pay-per-use).In few countries (Germany, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland) the NREN isfinanced entirely, or for its most part, by the stakeholders or usercommunities. Most countries reported that (additional) project-basedfunding is received from the Commission through participation in GÉANTor other European projects. Two countries (Greece, Portugal) reportEuropean Structural Funds used to fund the NREN.

Country Financing body

Ministry ResearchCouncil

Membershipfees /Stakeholdercontribution

Usercontribution

EU Funding(apart fromGÉANTfunding)

Other

Austria

BelgiumBosnia &Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

Czechia

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

the Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Serbia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

UK

Ukraine




Usercontribution


Other

Austria

Belgium

Bosnia &Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

Czechia

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

the Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Serbia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

UK

UkraineTable: Funding of networking e-Infrastructure (question 2c-networking) Table: Funding of computing e-Infrastructure (question 2c-computing)

Answers to Question 2d

Question 2d - Describe the access policies of this organisation/these organisations, including any legal restrictions in using thee-Infrastructure.

AnalysisFrom the access policies of e-Infrastructures point of view, one clearly seesthat in most of them access is strictly at a national level, especially forcomputing services.

There are cases where service-portfolios may allow regional access (Nordicand Iberian countries) and countries such as Estonia or Germany in the areaof HPC, which allow access to some resources for international users.

In most countries the access of country-wide service-portfolios is free ofcharge for the user.

In some countries there are policies in place to allow for the use of thenational resources (mainly computing related, but services too) based on apeer-review process (mainly in the HPC field), while few provide access onan annual contribution basis or a pay-per-use model.

In addition to that, there are also several countries that have already set upaccess policies to allow for (partial) industrial use of the national e-Infrastructures (mostly for innovation), mainly in the area of computing.Some countries follow a regulated model to do this, while most have a pay-per-use one.One horizontal (country-wide) data storage service is still missing in most countries.

Table: e-Infrastructure access policies

40 41

Analysis — National Data Infrastructure(National Data Service / Data Management / Repositories)

Many countries receive funding for their data repositories by the ministry ofeducation and research. In some countries the research council is funding thedata repositories or providing project-based funding (Germany) for datarepositories. Several countries mention membership fees or usercontribution for data repositories. EU funding is also noted by somecountries. Only funding streams for data repositories have been considered.




Usercontribution


Other

Austria

BelgiumBosnia &Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

Czechia

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

the Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Serbia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

UK

Ukraine

Country International / Regional access Restrictions in access

Austria

Hospitals and Public administrationallowed; Industry allowed in somee-Infrastructure on pay basis

Belgium

HPC/HTCTier-2: Only one Flemishuniversity requires payment by theusers. HPC level Tier-1: free, accessis on a peer-reviewed model.Industry allowed, but has to payexcept if within funded project witha university

Bosnia &Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

University hospitals and somebodies of Public and Govadministration allowed to connectto NREN; computing and digitalrepositories only to Academia &Research

Czechia

International (some of the e-Infra-structure)

Industry allowed for R&D activitiesonly, peer review in some e-Infrastructures

Denmark

Private companies with a significantresearch element are allowed in thenetwork. Companies can pay foraccess to compute resources, if anyare vacant

EstoniaInternational (some of the e-Infra-structure)

Finland

Table: Funding of national data e-Infrastructure (question 2c-data)

42 43


France

Peer review in some e-Infrastructures

Germany

Industry allowed in network, peerreview in computing

Greece

International and regional (Balkanregion) access (limited to somecloud/storage services)

Peer review in some e-Infrastructures

Hungary

Public collections (museums,libraries, etc.), some high level publicadministration, selected industrial R&D allowed

ItalyVery limited industry participation

Latvia

Very limited industry participation.Pay-per-use

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Industry will be allowed in thefuture

the Netherlands

Industry use is regulated, fees forsome services

Norway

International (some of the e-Infrastructure)

Industry allowed in some e-Infrastructures, annual fees in somee-Infrastructures, peer review


Poland

Industry allowed in some e-Infrastructures. Peer review.

Portugal

Regional (some of the e-Infrastructure)

Industry allowed in some e-Infrastructures. Peer review.

Serbia

Slovenia

Museums and public librariesallowed; industry allowed on paybasis (rather limited)

Spain

Regional (some of the e-Infrastructure)

Sweden

Regional (only for pre-definedspecific projects)

Large HPC-projects undergo peerreview.

Switzerland

Industry allowed, pay-per-usemodels exist

Turkey

Industry allowed in some e-Infrastructures with fee

UKGrant or pay per use

Ukraine

For computing access grantedthrough agreements

43

Answers to Question 3

Question 3 - Please list national domain-specific e-Infrastructures or other domain areas of particular interest inthe country (e.g. ELIXIR nodes) and include whether they usethe horizontal e-Infrastructures (listed above).

Analysis

The following issues have been identified:

1. The list of domain specific e-Infrastructures per country covers themajor ones, and in particular the ones with a regional, European orinternational dimension, and it is thus not complete;

2. In every country some level of use of horizontal e-Infrastructures bydomain specific ones is reported, but this is triggered by the formulationof the question. This also explains why most countries mention theposition of their ELIXIR-node (which was mentioned as an example inthe question).

3. The network is – obviously - the most frequently used horizontale‑Infrastructure.

4. Many countries that provided information on domain-specific researchinfrastructures refer to their national roadmap for (large) researchinfrastructures.

Some countries provide interesting information on the interplay between(the funding of) these large research infrastructures and the horizontale‑Infrastructures. Two countries in particular (Norway, Netherlands)

describe these mechanisms: RIs applying for funding from the nationalRoadmap funds are obliged to fill in an e-Infrastructure section (andcorresponding budget) that they need to have discussed in advance withtheir national horizontal e‑Infrastructure provider(s) (e-Needs).There is onlyvery limited experience yet with such mechanisms.

44

Bulgaria

Czechia

Estonia

Greece

Hungary

Lithuania

Luxembourg

the Netherlands

Norway

LatviaBelgium

Mostlyyes

Mixed case(som

edo, som

ehave

theirown)

Mostly No

Further specification

46%46%

11%11%

11%11%

32%32%

Austria

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Italy

Poland

Portugal

Serbia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

TurkeyUkraine

Bosnia & HerzegovinaCroatiaSlovenia

Bosnia & HerzegovinaCroatiaSlovenia

Infographic:

Use of horizontal e-Infrastructure bynational domain-specific e‑Infrastructures

45

Annex 2 - National node surveytemplateTemplate for 'national node' information

In the e-IRG 2016 Roadmap two recommendations aredirected at national governments and funding agencies. Theyshould reinforce their efforts to:

1) embrace e-Infrastructure coordination at the nationallevel and build strong national e-Infrastructure buildingblocks, enabling coherent and efficient participation inEuropean efforts;

2) together analyse and evaluate their national e-Infrastructure funding and governance mechanisms, identifybest practices, and provide input to the development of theEuropean e-Infrastructure landscape.

These recommendations also appear in the Council conclusions (28/29 May2018), which (statement 8) reads: “ENCOURAGES Member States to invite theirrelevant communities, such as e-Infrastructures, research infrastructures, ResearchFunding Organisations (RFO’s) and Research Performing Organisations (RPO’s), toget organized so as to prepare them for connection to the EOSC.”

This template is directed at collecting information from each Member State/Associated Country (MS/AC) about the current status in order to address -in a second step of analysis - these challenges.This analysis will be the coreof e-IRG’s next policy document.

A first collection of short information will indicate whether a “one-size-fits-all” template/ questionnaire can accommodate all countries. If not, a moreflexible approach will be needed with more open questions.

In the template the word e-Infrastructure is assumed to cover various 'layers'or components, in particular: networking, computing, data andtools & services. Whenever this is necessary to describe the country'scontext, separate information on these components should be provided.

At this stage questions 1 to 3 are considered to be most relevant. Question4 can be addressed at a later stage.

Respondent are free if they consider it relevant - in addition to the nationalperspective- to insert information on regional aspects (within or betweencountries).

e-IRG delegates are responsible for providing the information for his/hercountry. Responses should be sent to [email protected] ultimatelyMonday 11 June.

1) Please provide your country name and an email for further questions [1]

2) Please list information on organisations, governance, funding, accesspolicies for e-Infrastructures (or its components) in your country. Inputshould list only the most relevant information (<2 A4 paper size). Use links

Country name

Email address

to documents to provide further details, if so wished.

2a) Describe which organisation or organisations have been given theresponsibility on the national level for provisioning e-Infrastructureservices in your country.

If the answers contain multiple organisations, describe (if applicable) howthese organisations coordinate their activities amongst themselves.

2b) Describe the governance of this organisation/these organisations(such as: legal entity, composition of board or council, representation ofstakeholders, such as universities, research infrastructures, fundingagencies, etc.).

2c) Describe how this organisation/these organisations are funded (mainfunding streams, such as ministries, research councils, grants, subsidies,third parties (industrial, other), membership contributions, usercontributions, etc.).

2d) Describe the access policies of this organisation/these organisations,including any legal restrictions in using the e-Infrastructure.

3) Please list national domain-specific e-Infrastructures or otherdomain areas of particular interest in the country (e.g. ELIXIR nodes) andinclude whether they use the horizontal e-Infrastructures (listed above).

4) Please list the main components of the e-Infrastructure (networking,computing, data and other services/tools)

[1] This personal information will be used just for the inquiry on nationalnodes and consultation on this. The collected (personal) data will bedestroyed after that.

National domain-specific e-Infrastructure(repeat for each)

Use of nationalhorizontal e-Infrastructures (ifapplicable); if not writeshort text about thedomain e-Infrastructure

Network

Computing

Data services

Other services

Own/Separate e-Infrastructure

46

Network infrastructure(s)

Computing infrastructure(s)Data infrastructure(s)Other tools/services

46 47

national nodes– getting organised; how far are...

Documents