PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing, was established in May 2010 as a permanent pan-European High Performance Computing service providing world-class systems for world-class science. Six systems at the highest performance level (Tier-0) are deployed by Germany, France, Italy and Spain providing researchers with over 9 billion core hours of compute time. HPC experts from twenty-five member states - funded in part in three implementation projects - enabled users from academia and industry to ascertain leadership and remain competitive in the Global Race. Currently PRACE is preparing for PRACE 2.0, the successor of the initial five year period. The objectives of PRACE-4IP are to build on and seamlessly continue the successes of PRACE and start new innovative and collaborative activities proposed by the consortium. These include: assisting the transition to PRACE 2.0; strengthening the internationally recognised PRACE brand; continuing advanced training which so far provided more than 15.000 person-training days to over 4700 persons, preparing strategies and best practices towards exascale computing, coordinating and enhancing the operation of the multi-tier HPC systems and services, and supporting users to exploit massively parallel systems and novel architectures. The proven project structure will be used to achieve each of the objectives in six dedicated work packages. The project will continue to be managed by Jülich. The activities are designed to increase Europe's research and innovation potential especially through: seamless and efficient Tier-0 services and a pan-European HPC ecosystem including national capabilities; promoting take-up by industry and special offers to SMEs; analysing new flexible business models for PRACE 2.0; proposing strategies for deployment of leadership systems; collaborating with the ETP4HPC, the coming CoEs and other European and international organisations on future architectures, training, application support and policies.

As a 7-year strategic framework this Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) outlines the overall direction, objectives and impacts without detailing specific deliverables or milestones that will follow in subsequent Grant Agreements (SGAs) that will be actioned under the FPA. In this FPA, the GÉANT consortium of European NRENs propose to evolve the European Communications Commons to provide secure, cost-effective, highly available and reliable services for very high-speed connectivity, identity inter-federation, mobility, security and trust services and solutions; increasing creativity and efficiency of research and ensuring the digital continuum of services to R&E users anywhere in the EU, bridging the divide between developed and less-developed regions. The connectivity and associated services provided are indispensable for seamless, unimpeded access to relevant data, as well as exploitation and management of data generated by European researchers in almost all large research infrastructures. Thanks to successful collaboration between the EC, the GÉANT consortium of NRENs, and their users, these services are second to none, and routinely surpass those of international counterparts. One of the most successful attributes of the GÉANT consortium representing the Research and Education Networks of 44 countries across Europe is the proven ability to agree common interests, while promoting individual or group-led innovations and sharing costs across a diversified membership. GÉANT works with a wide variety of European and global stakeholders to ensure future user requirements for infrastructure are met in a cost-effective and interoperable way. The expertise of hundreds of professionals in R&E networking and industry will be mobilised through the SGAs following this FPA. The GÉANT partners are confident that their joint experience and the leadership of the GÉANT Association will facilitate a successful and impactful execution of a series of SGAs under the proposed FPA.

The rurALLURE action aims to leverage the state-of-the-art in information technologies in order to promote rural museums and heritage sites in the vicinity of major European pilgrimage routes. The goal is to foster symbiosis between the rural environment and the pilgrimage routes, so that the ongoing investment in the latter permeates to the nearby rural areas and, the other way round, the cultural experience of the pilgrimage is enriched by the vast cultural heritage that most often goes unnoticed. rurALLURE will connect cultural heritage collections and venues to present Europe’s cultural heritage in the wider historical and geographical context, leveraging the role of museums in preserving and managing cultural heritage, and collaborating with national and transnational associations to develop and promote cultural tourism. It will also foster sustained cooperation between museums and heritage sites to increase European public interest, cultural tourism and the innovation potentials of these institutions for heritage sciences and the cultural and creative sectors. Finally, it will conduct work to identifying gaps and obstacles, as well as best practices and fields where research and innovation can develop new solutions for successful cooperation.

EOSC Gravity will support the transition of the European co-programmed Partnership for EOSC into its new governance and funding framework. EOSC Gravity will leverage EOSC Focus engagement channels and facilities and establish new ones. Through open calls, EOSC Gravity will provide funding to support the EOSC Federation by encouraging the creation of EOSC Nodes, inter-project collaboration, and will support the revision of SRIA 2.0. The further evolution of the EOSC Federation will be charted through measures to monitor and report on EOSC Partnership KPIs and to establish a methodology to assess the impact of EOSC. What: EOSC Gravity will support the Partnership in its role of charting a continuous flow of up-to-date and accurate information on the status of EOSC and developing strategic recommendations through the SRIA to ensure that the Partnership transitions into a new governance and funding model post-2027. HOW: EOSC Gravity will mobilise and grow the broader EOSC community with outreach and engagement activities empowering stakeholders to further evolve the EOSC Federation; and will directly fund actions to support the creation of several EOSC Nodes. The EOSC Academy will be anchored to ensure an informed community has the expertise to foster EOSC-related activities at country and institution levels. Projects will collaborate and will feed their results into EOSC-A Task Forces. WHY: EOSC Gravity will pull the EOSC communities of stakeholders together to contribute to a smooth and effective transition from the Partnership to a new governance and funding framework for EOSC post-2027. Multi-stakeholder collaboration and dialogue which builds on EU and national investments in this area is needed for the future of EOSC as a federated infrastructure. WHO: The EOSC Gravity consortium is formulated as a lean grouping of skilled partners coordinated by EOSC-A, the EC’s partner in the EOSC Partnership and current coordinator of the EOSC Focus project.