EUDAT: a landmark agreement sustaining the pan European Collaborative Data Infrastructure for the next 10 years

3rd October 2016 - Cineca and 15 major European research organisations, data and computing centres signed an agreement to sustain the EUDAT – pan European collaborative data infrastructure for the next 10 years. The organisations stand together behind a long term sustainability plan and commit to develop, maintain and deploy pan-European research data services and to promote harmonization of research data management practices across centres.

What does this mean?

Service providers, both generic and thematic, and research communities have joined forces as part of a common framework for developing an interoperable layer of common data services. Known as the EUDAT Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CDI), this is essentially a European e-infrastructure of integrated data services and resources to support research. This infrastructure and its services have been developed in close collaboration with over 50 research communities spanning across many different scientific disciplines and involved at all stage of the design process. The establishment of the EUDAT CDI is timely with the imminent realization of the European Open Science Cloud[1] which aims to offer open and seamless services for storage, management, analysis and re-use of research data, across borders and scientific disciplines.

What benefits will this bring to researchers?

Researchers can rely on innovative data services to support their research collaboration and data management. Additionally they benefit from a common service management framework delivered by CDI service providers and the connection between sites. These 16 organizations from 11 countries with a further 4 in the process of joining, are European leaders in the deployment of data management and data infrastructure services. By joining the EUDAT CDI they are able to better serve their local customers across borders and support cross-national collaborations.

For any further information you can please visit the EUDAT website.