AIoD: The European Open Science Commons for AI

This article was published first on the website of AI4Europe on March 7 2025

What is a Research Commons? 

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) defines a Global Open Research Commons  (GORC) as “a global trusted ecosystem that provides seamless access to high-quality interoperable research outputs and services” and identifies the following components as essential elements of a commons:

1. Governance structures: Defines purpose, strategic development, values, policies and decision-making processes of the commons.
2. Rules of participation and access: Establishes the rights, obligations and accountability for stakeholders.
3. Sustainability: Ensures long-term viability through funding models and operational agreements.
4. Engagement: Fosters collaboration among stakeholders to drive innovation and success.
5. Human capacity: Encompasses researchers, users, service providers and intermediaries contributing to the commons.
6. Interoperability and standards: Facilitates seamless integration of data and tools through agreed-upon protocols.
7. ICT infrastructure: Provides the backbone of the commons, including computing, storage, networking and Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI).
8. Services and tools: Includes software, data management platforms, workflow automation and discovery services to accelerate research.
9. Research objects: Covers research outputs such as datasets, publications and software.

The first five elements represent the social and human dimension essential to a thriving commons, aligned with Elinor Ostrom’s framework for the sustainable management of collective resources. Interoperability and Standards ensure FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) principles are upheld, while the last three elements form the core infrastructure researchers interact with.

AIoD aligns with this model by offering a unified platform for accessing and sharing AI resources. The core infrastructure includes: 

• The AIoD Metadata catalogue: Fosters interoperability with the commons catalogue and discovery service on which other services, such as MyLibrary, can be built. 
• Cloud, HPC and Edge Infrastructures: Provision the compute resources directly accessed by researchers or indirectly accessed by platform services such as AI Builder.
• AIoD Login: Provides the federated identity management and access service, ensuring seamless authentication across AIoD services. 

As an AI4Europe partner, EGI actively contributes to developing the AIoD platform, ensuring it meets the evolving needs of the research community. EGI aims to:

• Extend the compute and storage capacity available through the AIoD platform, leveraging EGI Federated Infrastructures.
• Aggregate user demand from EGI research communities and projects, facilitating broader adoption of AIoD services.
• Contribute expertise from the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and other major initiatives where the GORC model is being applied.
• Support AI democratisation by integrating open-source datasets, federated computing resources, and advanced AI tools, building on projects like interTwin, iMagine, RI-SCALE and EOSC Data Commons.

The EGI Federation aspires to become a node of the AIoD Federation, offering dedicated federated compute and storage capacity from its member institutions. This will enhance the exploitation of AI research objects and services, further strengthening AIoD’s role as a collaborative AI resource hub.

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