ERCIM News 144
April 2026
Special theme Advancing Open Science
Guest editors Leonardo Candela (CNR-ISTI) and Roberto Di Cosmo (Inria and University Paris Cité)
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 943
by the guest editors Leonardo Candela (CNR-ISTI) and Roberto Di Cosmo (Inria and University Paris Cité)
Open Science is a broad and evolving movement. The UNESCO framework describes it as an inclusive approach aimed at making scientific knowledge openly available, accessible, and reusable for everyone, opening the processes of knowledge creation and evaluation to stakeholders beyond the traditional research community [1]. Today, Open Science is no longer merely a normative ideal: it has become an operational requirement embedded in national strategies, funding conditions, and research assessment reforms across Europe and beyond.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 2683
by Paolo Manghi (CNR-ISTI)
The OpenAIRE Graph provides an open, community-governed data infrastructure for research intelligence, enabling transparent and auditable use of scholarly data beyond proprietary systems.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 879
by Stefania Amodeo and Zenia Xenou (OpenAIRE AMKE)
OpenAIRE introduces a new approach to researcher profiles, combining open data and narrative CVs to support responsible research assessment beyond traditional metrics.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 893
by Jose-Miguel Horcas (ITIS Software, Universidad de Málaga)
As the research community increasingly embraces Open Science, the need for transparent and accessible tools to understand academic productivity has become more pressing. BibTexViz [L1] bridges the gap between raw bibliographic data and insightful visual analytics, enabling researchers to explore their career trajectories while aligning with the principles of the CoARA and DORA initiatives.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 868
by Tereza Szybisty (OpenAIRE Amke)
A new generation of Open Science monitoring in Europe connects comparable indicators with national context and AI-enhanced policy analysis to support informed and responsible decision-making.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 820
by Leon Gorissen, RWTH Aachen University) and Philipp Brauner (RWTH Aachen University) Germany)
Open Science promises better, faster, and more trustworthy research and benefits arise if data can be shared, aggregated, and reused. We present data-to-knowledge pipelines in an engineering context as a practical way to turn open research data into additional insights and tangible benefits across organizations. Drawing on shared data from industrial robots across organisations, the work illustrates how open infrastructures can enable collaboration at scale.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 853
by Magdalena Brus (EGI Foundation), Ville Tenhunen (EGI Foundation), Gergely Sipos (EGI Foundation), on behalf of the RI-SCALE consortium
European Research Infrastructures generate vast amounts of valuable scientific data, yet reusing these data remains difficult in practice due to the growing gap between data availability and data usability. As datasets reach terabyte and petabyte scale, downloading, storing, and analysing them locally becomes impractical, while configuring suitable computational and AI environments presents significant barriers. This article presents a new platform-based approach that brings data, computation, and artificial intelligence tools and applications together, enabling more effective, transparent, and scalable Open Science.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 715
by Adrián Segura Ortiz, José García-Nieto (ITIS Software, University of Málaga) and Laetitia Jourdan (CRIStAL Laboratory, University of Lille)
MOEBA-BIO is an open and extensible evolutionary biclustering framework that empowers the biomedical research community to specialize in advanced optimisation strategies. Through its modular design, holistic representation of solutions, adaptive learning of the number of biclusters, and integrated self-configuration mechanisms, the framework enables expert-driven domain refinement while promoting sustainable open research software.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 792
by Enol Fernández and Ilaria Fava (EGI Foundation)
EOSC Data Commons is a new European initiative to build the next generation of federated research data infrastructure. Researchers often know the data they need exists but cannot find it or access it easily. EOSC Data Commons tackles this fragmentation head-on by making cross-border discovery and reuse far more practical.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 1083
by Yannis Marketakis, Eleni Tsouloucha, Athina Kritsotaki, and Yannis Tzitzikas (FORTH-ICS)
Transforming FishBase into a semantic knowledge graph shows how legacy biodiversity databases can become FAIR, interoperable infrastructures that enable reuse and integration in Open Science.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 705
by Alessia Bardi (CNR-ISTI, OpenAIRE AMKE), Konstantina Galouni (ARC) and Paolo Manghi (CNR-ISTI, OpenAIRE AMKE)
The EOSC Beyond project is transforming the European Open Science Cloud into a dynamic, programmable environment by evolving the Interoperability Framework Registry from human-readable documents into machine-actionable templates. This shift empowers the scientific community to programmatically compose resources into automated scientific workflows.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 758
by Simone Onofri (W3C) and Giovanni Corti (FBK)
W3C has published a Threat Modeling Guide that expands security analysis to include societal impacts and promotes the publication of reusable, public threat models, aligning threat modeling with Open Science principles of transparency, reuse, and accountability.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 698
by Rita Stampfl (University of Applied Sciences Burgenland), Silke Palkovits-Rauter (University of Applied Sciences Burgenland)
Large-scale European research projects increasingly depend on interoperable data spaces and AI-driven services. Yet technical integration alone does not ensure sustainable and trustworthy ecosystems. A structured co-creation model, implemented since 2023 in a European energy data initiative, demonstrates how stakeholder collaboration, governance design and semantic alignment can be embedded directly into project architecture. By formalising participation across iterative development cycles and integrating ethical reflection into technological innovation, the model reframes co-creation as an infrastructural component of Open Science rather than a supplementary engagement activity.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 655
by Katharina Flicker (TU Wien, SBA), Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi (TU Graz), Dimitri Prandner (JKU)
As Open Science becomes a structural requirement, developing the right skills goes beyond technical training and requires integrating disciplinary expertise with legal, communicative, and data-related competences.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 1050
by Martin Dvořák, Pavlína Špringerová and Matej Antol (Masaryk University)
Four years ago, the Czech Republic laid out its plan for a National Data Infrastructure for FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) research data under the Czech chapter of the European Open Science Cloud initiative (EOSC CZ). After years of planning and development, the first comprehensive national survey of researcher practices delivers insight into its progress: although two-thirds of Czech researchers declare some familiarity with the Open Science principles in research data management, more than half still store research data primarily on portable devices, and a similar proportion have never heard of EOSC. These findings are directly influencing the initiative’s approach to working with the scientific community and its deployment of infrastructure, tools, and services.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 1149
by Daniel Spichtinger (Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft / University of Vienna/independent researcher)
Creative Commons licences underpin the reusability of research data and are a key enabler of Open Science, yet the rise of large-scale AI training is testing their limits. This article, based on and updating a recent book chapter [1][LC1.1][DS1.2], examines the legal landscape in the European Union and the United States.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 747
by Diana E. Jimenez-Bejarano (Trialog), Stephan Krenn (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology), Antonio Kung (Trialog), and Angel Palomares Perez (Advanced Computing SL)
Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) have moved from academic prototypes to relevant building blocks of Europe’s digital policy agenda. Developments such as GDPR, the NIS2 Directive, the EU AI Act and the European Digital Identity framework show a clear direction: using or analysing sensitive data must not weaken confidentiality, privacy, data sovereignty, or compliance. At the same time, modern AI systems increasingly rely on cross-organisational collaboration. This dynamic creates a structural tension between data utility and privacy protection.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 1329
by Alane Brunschweiger, Maja Dolinar and Fay Meimaraki (OpenAIRE AMKE)
One year after its launch, the EOSC EU Node is emerging as a key European gateway for Open Science, enabling researchers to access, share, and collaborate across borders.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 3774
Federico Drago (EGI Foundation) and Nicola Fiore (EGI Foundation)
Becoming part of the EOSC Federation is a significant step for any organisation involved in research. The new EOSC Core Innovation Sandbox provides a safe, pre-production environment where providers can test their integration, validate interoperability, and gain confidence before joining the live federation, turning the complexity of Open Science into a manageable, step-by-step process.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 679
by Federico Drago (EGI Foundation), Delphine Dobler (Euro-ARGO ERIC) and Ulrich Bundke (Forschungszentrum Jülich / IAGOS AISBL)
The new ENVRI-Hub platform, developed by the ENVRI-Hub NEXT project, serves as a central science gateway for Europe's environmental research. It demonstrates how interoperable Virtual Research Environments can accelerate collaborative Open Science and make FAIR data actionable for tackling global challenges.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 634
by Massimiliano Assante, Luca Frosini, Francesco Mangiacrapa, and Pasquale Pagano (CNR-ISTI)
D4Science supports Virtual Research Environments that integrate data, computing, and collaboration tools, making Open Science part of everyday research practice across diverse communities.
- Details
- Category: Special Theme
- Hits: 724
by Andrea Dell’Amico, Alfredo Oliviero, Giancarlo Panichi, Biagio Peccerillo (CNR-ISTI) and Marco Procaccini (CNR-IGG)
DAVE, a conversational assistant integrated into D4Science Virtual Research Environments, simplifies access to services and supports Open Science workflows through natural language interaction.