EOSC Beyond Engaged the Community at the EOSC Winter School 2026

Photo courtesy of the EOSC Gravity project

The EOSC Beyond team just got back from the EOSC Winter School 2026 held in Nice, France, from 27 to 29 January. Led by Project Director Diego Scardaci and Technical Coordinator Nicola Fiore (both from the EGI Foundation), our project engaged with the broader federation community to introduce our core solutions and explore future collaboration pathways.

A key focus was the co-located EOSC Stakeholder Brokerage Event, where the EOSC Beyond team held numerous productive discussions with representatives from over a dozen established EOSC Nodes and emerging initiatives, including the EU Node, German, Slovak, Finnish, Polish, and CERN Nodes, among others. These meetings served as a vital platform to align our project's outputs with the operational needs of the Federation.

Reflecting on the engagements, Nicola Fiore noted: "We are highly satisfied with the quantity and quality of the meetings held with representatives of other Nodes and key initiatives. The level of interest and the concrete discussions on federated operations validate our technical direction. We now have a clear set of actionable follow-ups and look forward to advancing these collaborations in the crucial months ahead."

The brokerage sessions revealed a strong, shared interest across the Node community in several EOSC Beyond core services, particularly:

A significant insight was that many Nodes are actively working towards the EOSC 2026 goals and the EU Node pilot deadlines in October 2026. There is a clear recognition that the practical experience and service blueprints developed within EOSC Beyond can provide a tangible competitive advantage and accelerate these efforts.

Furthermore, projects such as EOSC United and Climate-Adapt4EOSC expressed direct interest in utilising the EOSC Core Innovation Sandbox to test and integrate their services, highlighting the sandbox's role as a critical community resource.

The interactions in Nice have clearly defined the path for the second half of the EOSC Beyond project. Our immediate next steps, to be refined in upcoming project meetings, will focus on:

The overwhelming feedback was a desire for greater awareness and access to EOSC Beyond's practical work. We invite all EOSC stakeholders, Nodes, service providers, and projects, to explore our testbed for the Federation.

Visit the EOSC Core Innovation Sandbox to discover how you can test your services and integrate with the evolving federation architecture.

Let's build the operational EOSC together. Get in touch with the EOSC Beyond team to continue the conversation started in Nice, or to start new ones!