The ambition of EOSC is to develop a ‘Web of FAIR Data and Services’ for science in Europe. EOSC will be a multidisciplinary environment where researchers can publish, find, and reuse data, tools, and services, enabling them to conduct their work more effectively. EOSC is enabled by the emerging EOSC Federation, consisting of interconnected autonomous Nodes implementing a system-of-systems architecture, with all Nodes operating under a common framework of standards, policies, and best practices.

The EOSC Association works to implement EOSC and the EOSC Federation. The not-for-profit membership association works in partnership with the European Commission. EGI Foundation is an active member of the EOSC Association, contributing to General Assembly meetings, consultations and Task Forces.

EGI representatives contribute to voluntary EOSC Task Forces working on specific topics important to the realisation of EOSC. Diego Scardaci is a co-chair of the EOSC Technical and Semantic Interoperability Task Force, while Ville Tenhunen contributes to the Health Data Task Force. In the previous round of Task Forces (2021-2023), Diego Scardaci was a co-chair of the Technical Interoperability of Data and Services Task Force, Dale Robertson was a co-chair of the Financial Sustainability Task Force, and Matthew Viljoen and Ville Tenheunen participated in the Long-term Data Preservation Task Force.

EGI leads or actively participates in numerous projects (EOSC Beyond, EOSC Data Commons, EOSC United, and EOSC Gravity) that drive the development and implementation of the EOSC framework, ensuring that it meets the needs of diverse scientific communities.

EGI has played a key role in the creation of the EOSC Federation Handbook in 2025 and 2026, contributing to the definition of the interim EOSC Federation governance, legal and operational structures and architecture, which will support the initial build-up of the EOSC Federation. The Handbook defines clear policies and procedures for joining the EOSC Federation.

Leveraging its vast experience in federated services, EGI plays a crucial role in the design and delivery of the EOSC EU Node’s core and application services:

• Node Core Capabilities: EGI contributes a substantial portion of the Core Capabilities delivered by the EU Node, such as application workflow management, monitoring, accounting, helpdesk, persistent identifiers, and parts of AAI. These Core Capabilities form the backbone of the EU Node and enable its basic operation. The EOSC EU Node, as the first operational EOSC Node, delivers a reference implementation of Node Core Capabilities.
• Service Management System: EGI delivers the EOSC EU Node’s Service Management System (SMS) for professional planning, delivery, operation, and continual improvement of services. The SMS processes allow, among others, a meticulous validation of all components of the EOSC EU Node against industry standards and EOSC platform specifications, ensuring a smooth integration and acceptance before deployment.
• Security Coordination: EGI spearheads security coordination for the EOSC EU Node. This includes crafting a comprehensive security plan, establishing robust procedures for handling potential security incidents, and continuously checking the EU Node components for vulnerabilities and exploits.
• Contribution to EOSC EU Node Application Services: EGI provides Jupyter Notebooks to facilitate interactive computing, enhancing researchers’ ability to analyse data and develop models within the EOSC ecosystem.
• Understanding the Needs of Research Communities: EGI’s extensive experience serving both individual scientists and large research communities is invaluable for the EOSC EU Node, as it allows tailoring the experience of users who come to the EOSC EU Node and use the provided services or applications to the actual needs of these research communities.

The EGI Federation aspires to be part of the EOSC Federation as a Node for data-intensive computing and large-scale research data exploitation, enabling seamless, cross-border access to FAIR data, advanced analytics and interoperable digital research services. Through the EGI Node, research communities and other EOSC Nodes will be able to access scalable compute and storage resources, cloud and container platforms, workflows, and research data repositories. The offering will be complemented by research environments and repositories integrated with the EGI infrastructure provided by EGI members (NGIs), research infrastructures and scientific communities at the national and European levels.

The EGI Node will provide key building blocks for establishing EOSC as the European Research Commons in line with the RDA GORC model. By delivering compute and data infrastructure, interoperable services, and community support, EGI will address the needs of data-intensive research communities and enable more efficient collaboration, significantly advancing Open Science.