EOSC Symposium 2026

14 Oct 2026, 12:30 → 16 Oct 2026, 16:15 Europe/Zurich

Palazzo dei Congressi, Florence

EOSC Symposium 2026

Wednesday 14 October

12:30 → 13:30 Welcome Light Lunch

13:30 → 14:00 Opening Welcome

– Anna Maria Bernini, Italian Minister of University and Research

14:00 → 15:15 Opening Session

– Welcome from the chair
– Keynote speech: Manuel Heitor, Full Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) and main author of Align, Act, Accelerate Report
– Panel Discussion

15:15 → 16:00 Networking Coffee Break

16:00 → 18:30 Plenary Session

Thursday 15 October

09:00 → 09:45 Opening Keynote

– Rosie Hicks, Chief Executive of the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)

09:45 → 11:00 Track 1: TBC

09:45 → 11:00 Data federation, trustworthiness and sovereignty

Chairs: Klaus Tochtermann, ZBW and EOSC Association President; Mari Kleemola, Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD), Tampere University

Objectives:
– Showcase practical approaches to data federation and data sovereignty through real-world use cases, identifying remaining barriers
– Identify common challenges, barriers, and requirements for integrating trustworthy repositories into the EOSC Federation

Agenda:

5’ Opening by the Chairs

10' Impulse Statement – The Federation of Nodes and the requirements for repositories to become a Node themselves or onboard their services onto a Node

10' Impulse Statement – Outcomes of a survey among repositories on their “EOSC readiness”

50' Panel Discussion

5’ Closing by the Chairs

09:45 → 11:00 EOSC Federation nodes in production: lessons learnt and next steps

Chairs: Annika Glauner, ETH Zürich and EOSC Node Switzerland; Roberto Sabatino, Asiera and EOSC Steering Board

Objectives: The session answers the following questions: how to build an EOSC node (technical / governance/ legal aspects)? How to engage resource providers and users? How to sustain a node?

Agenda:

5' Welcome from the Chairs

50' Five talks from EOSC nodes part of the build-up phase

20' Interactive discussion

11:00 → 11:45 Networking Coffee Break

11:45 → 13:00 Capacity building on using AI tools for data science

Chairs: Álvaro López García, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC); Kamran Naim, CERN and EOSC Association Board; Oliver Knodel, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR); Roxanne Wyns, KU Leuven and EOSC Association Board

11:45 → 13:00 Usage of EOSC Nodes and related benefits

Chairs: Aneta Pazik-Aybar, National Science Centre Poland (NCN) and EOSC Steering Board; Giovanni Guerrieri, CERN; Jonathan Tedds, ELIXIR

Objectives:
– Showcase concrete, multi-node use cases where researchers and providers solved, accelerated, or scaled a real scientific or operational problem using EOSC Nodes (including the EU Node) — making visible what already works across the Federation.
– Distill the benefits, recurring blockers, and requirements from real Node usage into actionable feedback for Node operators and the EOSC Federation.

Agenda:

5' Welcome by the Chairs

10' Lightning Talk FORGE: Federated Open Research Data for Genomics

10' Lightning Talk METROFOOD: Cross-node Catalogue Federation

10' Lightning Talk Leveraging Scarce EU Node Resources & Digital sovereignty

10' Lightning Talk Federated Workflows Using Galaxy

25’ Moderated Discussion and Q&A

5' Closing by the Chairs

11:45 → 13:00 EOSC Federation IF, architecture and data-related policies

Chairs: Matteo Zanaroli, Italian National Research Centre on High-Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing (ICSC) and EOSC Node Italy; Peter Maccallum, ELIXIR and Life Science Node

Objectives: This session will present the current state of the art of the EOSC Interoperability Framework (IF) and its overall architecture, offering a clear and practical overview of how EOSC nodes are designed and operated today. It will examine the key technical, governance, and legal components required to build robust and compliant nodes in practice, while also reflecting on the gaps and needs that should be addressed in the future development of the EOSC Federation. A specific focus will be on enabling the sharing of high-quality research data and metadata, including the adoption of FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), provenance information, and other practices that support trust, discoverability, interoperability, and reuse across the EOSC ecosystem. The session will also explore strategies to effectively engage both service/resource providers and user communities, while highlighting the differences that may arise across various types of nodes and levels of implementation. In addition, the session will discuss sustainability and “business model” approaches to support the long-term impact, continuous evolution, and deeper integration of EOSC nodes within the EOSC Federation ecosystem.

Agenda:

10' Welcome and introduction

40' Panel discussion

20' Interactive discussion

5’ Closing by the Chairs

13:00 → 14:30 Networking Lunch

14:30 → 15:45 EOSC and ERICs/ESFRIs

Chairs: Antje Keppler, Euro-BioImaging ERIC and EOSC Association Board; Jan Hrusak, J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences and EOSC Steering Board

14:30 → 15:45 Automating data FAIRification

Chairs: Erik Schultes, GO FAIR Foundation; Giorgio Rossi, Università degli Studi di Milano and EOSC Steering Board

Objectives: Provide an overview of the state of the art in the production of FAIR datasets (e.g. by research infrastructures) by either FAIR-by-design technologies or by ex-post FAIRification by algorithms and compute. Provide the outlook on how the necessary level of productivity (in the limit of all new data 100% FAIR) can be reached by the two methods, and/or their combination, from the perspectives of technology, economy, transferability of solutions.

Agenda:
Agenda:
5' Introduction

30' Presentations
- FAIR-by-design approach, technology and production. Implications in laboratory setup upgrades.
- FAIRification ex-post acquisition, reliable algorithms and curation. Implications in HPC needs

15' Three use cases

20' Panel discussion

5' Wrap-up and final remarks

14:30 → 15:45 EOSC Federation federating capabilities

Chairs: Aastha Mathur, Euro-BioImaging ERIC and EOSC Node Operations Committee; Bob Jones, EOSC Association; Mario Reale, EOSC Association; Massimiliano Assante, National Research Council (CNR) and EOSC Node Operations Committee; Roksana Wilk, Cyfronet AGH and EOSC Node Operations Committee

Objectives: Explain to the audience the current status of the mandatory federating capabilities and how they are expected to evolve during 2026-2027. The audience is expected to be contributors (nodes & resources) to the EOSC Federation.

Agenda:

10' Introduction

50' Presentations of the mandatory federating capabilities

Federated Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure (AAI)
Federated Catalogs
Helpdesk
Monitoring
Service Management System (FitSM)

15' Q&A

15:45 → 16:30 Networking Coffee Break

16:30 → 17:45 EOSC and Data Spaces

Chairs: Enrique Bernal-Delgado, Aragonese Institute of Health Sciences (IACS) and EOSC Association Board; Marialuisa Lavitrano, Milano-Bicocca University and EOSC Association Board

Objectives: Explore synergies between EOSC and European Data Spaces initiatives. Examine legal and regulatory considerations, with a focus on the European Health Data Space. Highlight practical experiences from sectoral data spaces, including health and cultural heritage. Assess the role of infrastructures such as SIMPL in supporting data space implementation. Identify opportunities for collaboration between research communities, policymakers, and data space stakeholders.

Agenda:

10' Welcome from the Chairs

30' Three presentations

30' Panel discussion and audience interaction

5' Wrap-up and closing remarks

16:30 → 17:45 EOSC Federation User Forum the Voice of the Research Community

Chairs: Andy Götz, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF); Sally Chambers, Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH EU)

16:30 → 17:45 Business models for EOSC Federation

Chairs: Dale Robertson, EGI Foundation; Jan Meijer, Sikt; Javier Lopez Albacete, DG RTD, European Commission

Objectives:
– Explore mechanisms for the fair and efficient sharing of resources, services, and capabilities across independent organisations within distributed environments.
– Discuss the minimal operational, legal, technical, and organisational conditions required to enable scalable and sustainable resource sharing within the EOSC Federation

Agenda:

5’ Introduction by the Chairs

30' Examples of business models in distributed environments

Thematic Research Infrastructure
Pan-European e-infrastructure & national perspective
Credit model for the provision of digital services

35’ Panel Discussion

5’ Closing by the Chairs

Friday 16 October

09:30 → 10:00 Opening Keynote

10:00 → 10:45 Plenary Session

10:45 → 11:30 Networking Coffee Break

11:30 → 13:15 Closing Plenary

13:15 → 14:45 Networking Lunch