ESO joins the European Open Science Cloud Association

In a significant step in the direction of Open Science, ESO has formally joined the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Association as a Member. The Association is the legal entity governing the EOSC.

The EOSC is an European Commission initiative to “enable researchers to find, create, share and reuse all forms of digital knowledge – such as publications, data and software – leading to new insights and innovations, higher research productivity and improved reproducibility in science”, in the words of former Commissioner of Innovation, Research, Culture, Education & Youth Mariya Gabriel. ESO has long supported it, by endorsing the EOSC Declaration in 2017 and with its continuing participation in ESCAPE, a project — which stemmed from the EOSC — that brings together the astronomy, astroparticle and particle physics communities in Europe in support of Open Science. By joining the EOSC Association, ESO will now be involved in its governance, as well.

ESO has a long tradition in crucial aspects of Open Science. Archives and data processing tools for the La Silla Paranal and ALMA observatories give access to its full suite of millimetre, infrared and optical observations, endorsing the FAIR principles to make the data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable [1]. In addition, ESO supports open access to science publications through the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, which is published on its behalf.

These principles guide ESO into its governance role with the EOSC, supporting scientific development across disciplines, institutes and countries. ESO itself is a testament to the scientific benefits from intergovernmental cooperation, and by joining the EOSC Association, will promote Open Science across Europe and beyond.

Notes

[1] ESO archival data is released publicly after a one-year proprietary period in which the Principal Investigators have exclusive access to the data they proposed and observed.

Courtesy of European Southern Observatory