Blue-Cloud addresses the IA ‘The Future of Seas and Oceans Flagship Initiative’ (BG-07-2019-2020) for the following topic: [A] 2019 - Blue Cloud services. The project implements a practical approach to address the potential of cloud based open science to achieve a set of services identifying also longer term challenges to build and demonstrate the Pilot Blue Cloud as a thematic EOSC cloud to support research to better understand & manage the many aspects of ocean sustainability, through a set of five pilot Blue-Cloud demonstrators. It seeks to capitalise on what exists already and to develop and deploy, through a pragmatic workplan, the pilot Blue Cloud as a cyber platform bringing together and providing access to: 1) multidisciplinary data from observations and models, 2) analytical tools, & 3) computing facilities essential for key blue science use cases. Outputs include: a Blue Cloud Framework, Data Discovery & Access Service (approx. 400 users) & VRE (approx. 1,000 users) from 25 countries, Blue Cloud Service Catalogue including 50+ services deployed through 5 compelling pilot demonstrators, A Blue Cloud 2030 implementation Policy Roadmap, Whitepaper on outcomes of the Food/Blue-Cloud Pilots to support the implementation of thematic EOSC, 4 focused Roadmap events & Workshops, 1 hackathon, 10 webinars, 1 Final results conference, engaged community with all stakeholder groups represented. Led by a consortium bringing together leading European marine data management infrastructures, EOSC horizontal e-infrastructures, and excellent marine researchers. Coordinated by a neutral ICT intensive SME with over 15 years’ experience, technically coordinated by a community leading marine & ocean data specialist, and supported by 17 experienced partners, from research, academia & industry, with strategic and practical involvement in design and delivery of blue community needs. An influential External Stakeholders Experts Board & an Expert Foresight Group support the project.

Collaboration and sharing of resources is critical for research. Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructures (AAIs) play a key role in enabling federated interoperable access to resources. The AARC Technical Revision to Enhance Effectiveness (AARC TREE) project takes the successful and globally recognised “Authentication and Authorisation for Research Collaboration” (AARC) model and its flagship outcome, the AARC Blueprint Architecture (BPA), as the basis to drive the next phase of integration for research infrastructures: expand federated access management to integrate user-centring technologies, expand access to federated data and services (authorisation), consolidating existing capacities and avoiding fragmentation and unnecessary duplication. The main objectives of the AARC TREE project are to: (i) Capture and analyse new Authentication and Authorisation interoperability requirements (as emerging that support integration use-cases across the thematic area) and provide a landscape analysis of AAIs services (including gaps) in the RIs represented in AARC TREE (ii) Define and validate new technical and policy guidelines for the AARC BPA that address RIs use-cases. This will improve the integration of RIs across thematic areas and increase the ability of RIs to support emerging needs (iii) Expand the number of research communities that can implement the AARC BPA and/or the AARC guidelines, by providing a validation environment and toolkits. At the same time support existing AARC communities in adopting new guidelines (iv) Bring RIs, e-Infrastructures and relevant stakeholders together to align strategies to integrate new technologies, better interoperate and share resources across thematic areas and produce a compendium and recommendations for different stakeholders

The ocean and its biodiversity are essential to life on this planet. Comprehensive data on biodiversity, and related human and environmental pressures are crucial to understand its current state and how this may change. Protecting and restoring biodiversity is one of three objectives of the Horizon Europe Mission to restore our oceans and waters by 2030, enabling the EU to reach its Green Deal and Biodiversity 2030 targets. Identified as one of the Mission "enablers", the EU will build on “a digital knowledge system” to include a Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO) allowing simulation of ‘what if’ scenarios, advancing ocean knowledge, informing evidence-based policy and offering a range of societal applications. To effectively replicate the ocean’s ecology, the DTO requires sustained flows of data on biodiversity and associated pressures. Despite myriad actors collecting biodiversity data, and the development of novel cost-effective monitoring technologies, much of these data are inaccessible or unusable for a variety of reasons, hampering the development of the DTO biological component and limiting its efficacy. DTO-BioFlow will activate access to ("sleeping") marine biodiversity data and enable the sustainable integration of existing and new Artificial Intelligence processed and automated data flows from various sources to EMODnet and into the EDITO infrastructure serving the EU DTO. Combining sustained data flows, models and new algorithms, DTO-BioFlow will develop and integrate the biological component of the DTO, including new digital tools and services. Policy-relevant use cases, will demonstrate the benefit for marine ecosystems of continuous data streams flowing through EMODnet and usable by the EU DTO infrastructures and ultimate end-users. Mobilising the marine biodiversity community towards increasing the availability of biodiversity monitoring data into 2030, DTO-BioFlow and its outputs will support the Mission’s actions to protect and restore biodiversity.

EOSC Future responds to INFRAEOSC-03-2020 call in order to integrate, consolidate, and connect e-infrastructures, research communities, and initiatives in Open Science to further develop the EOSC Portal, EOSC-Core and EOSC-Exchange of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). EOSC Future is structured around six thematic pillars that strategically group the work package tasks and activities and coherently present the key objectives and activities of the project to stakeholders: Pillar 1 on Policy & Strategy will coordinate and support a strategic vision for the future EOSC; Pillar 2 on Connection & Integration will connect and integrate EOSC infrastructures, data, and services; Pillar 3 on Excellent Science & Interdisciplinarity will extend the EOSC value Chain with scientific use cases; Pillar 4 on Growth & Innovation will grow and innovate EOSC with value-added services; Pillar 5 on Skills & Training will train users and providers of the EOSC ecosystem; and Pillar 6 on Engagement & Communications will engage the wider EOSC Community at a global level. EOSC Future will unlock the potential of European research via a vision of Open Science for Society by (1) bringing all major stakeholders in the EOSC ecosystem together under one project umbrella to break the disciplinary and community silos and consolidate key EOSC project outputs, (2) developing scientific use cases in collaboration with the thematic communities showcasing the benefits and societal value of EOSC for doing excellent and interdisciplinary research, (3) engaging the wider EOSC community and increasing the visibility of EOSC through communications campaigns, marketing strategies, and physical and online engagement events, and (4) including the EOSC community in developing the EOSC Portal (including the long tail of science, public and private sectors, and international partners) via co-creation open calls.