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https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2277/abstract03.pdf
Building FAIR Environmental Services Platforms in Europe
© Ari Asmi
Integrated Carbon Observation System ERIC,
Helsinki, Finland
ari.asmi@icos-ri.eu
Abstract. Research Infrastructures (RIs) in Europe are in a key position for development of new
research policies, access methods and technical solutions. European RIs cover almost all fields of science,
and disciplinary collaborations between them are the key for creating practical standards and best practices
for the whole communities. For this reason, they are also in a strong position to develop the practical
implementations of FAIR policies on actual research service provision. European environmental RIs have
worked together on these issues from early 2010s in ENVRI community, and the current iteration of this
collaboration – ENVRI PLUS has been a major development for common standardized services. The next
proposed iteration ENVRI FAIR would then be the crucial step from planning to implementation of real
actionable FAIR services for environmental research in the framework of European Open Science Cloud
initiative.
Keywords: Research Infrastructures, data management, FAIR, international collaboration.
1 Introduction
The European research infrastructures are major producers
of services (including data services) for researchers in
Europe and beyond. Due to their longevity and high level
of expertise, they are a natural place to develop new
service access methods, access policies, interfaces and
many other common developments. It should be noted that
RIs are not projects - they are intended as long-term
science platforms [1].
The European Commission has been funding the
development of these organizations from academic
facilities and networks to professional service platforms,
sustained by the EU member states. As many of the RIs
are from similar fields of science, it is reasonable to
consider that many of the technical and political
solutions should be similar. Similarly, many of scientific
questions require use of multiple facilities, and similar
solutions make the barrier of use smaller. For these
reasons, the European Commission has also supported
cluster projects, covering wide range of Research Figure 1 The ENVRI community covers all major
Infrastructures from a specific field. This common European research infrastructures, from Solid Earth,
development has been a very successful model for Marine, Ecosystem and Atmospheric domains, as well
creation of common and interoperable systems. as some infrastructures working between the domains.
European Commission has also been very active in
creation of European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) [2,3] 2 ENVRI Community and Projects
which is aimed to be the platform for science in Europe
and in beyond. This platform integrates the existing IT 2.1 ENVRI community
infrastructures, and also involves the RIs as a key
ENVRI is a community of major European Environmental
producer of services and data. One of the main aspects of
Research Infrastructures, covering the whole Earth
the EOSC initiative is the use of FAIR (Findable,
System sciences, from deep ocean observations, solid
Accessible, Interoperable and Re-useable) principles in
earth, land ecosystems, coastal and fresh water systems,
their service requirements. For this reason, the cluster
atmospheric composition and dynamics, up to highest
activities of RIs must reflect this requirement.
levels of atmosphere. Examples of these facilities in the
environmental domain are Integrated Carbon Observation
Proceedings of the XX International Conference System (ICOS), European LTER contribution, European
“Data Analytics and Management in Data Intensive Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association EISCAT. The
Domains” (DAMDID/RCDL’2018), Moscow, Russia, community also contains many multidisciplinary
October 9-12, 2018
7
infrastructures, working between these domains (Figure (1) well defined community policies and standards on
1). all steps of the data life cycle, aligned with the wider
The ENVRI Community is a long-term European policies, as well as with international
collaboration between these organizations, and facilitates developments;
their collaboration activities, maintains a Board of (2) each participating RI will have sustainable,
Environmental Research Infrastructure directors, transparent and auditable data services, for each step of
sustains the results of each ENVRI project and supports data life cycle, compliant to the FAIR principles.
the creation of funded activities by consulting the (3) the focus of the proposed work is put on the
funding agencies. implementation of prototypes for testing pre-production
services at each RI; the catalogue of prepared services is
2.2 ENVRI PLUS project defined for each RI independently, depending on the
The environmental RIs have been for several years maturity of the involved RIs;
supported by ENVRI PLUS project funded by the (4) the complete set of thematic data services and
European Commission, with the aim of creating common tools provided by the ENVRI cluster is exposed under
solutions for these organizations, in the areas of technical the EOSC catalogue of services.
development, data management, service access, societal The initiative is planned to start from 2019 and run
impact, strategic collaboration, communication and other for 4 years, with a strong connection to other cluster
aspects. The most relevant for this discussion is the project in Europe, the international FAIR community
activities in the Data for Science work packages, which (e.g. Research Data Alliance and others) and with other
have created for example a standard Reference Model for international and national initiatives.
RI service provision, drafted common architecture and
created far more consistent landscape of data services in 3 International collaboration needs
the European environmental research.
This kind of approach does not work from purely one
2.2 ENVRI FAIR initiative project perspective, and connection to other European,
international and regional programmes working in the
New initiative ENVRI FAIR will answer to these FAIR policy, standards and definitions are a crucial part
challenges. Directly involving the European of the activities. The presentation concentrates on
environmental RIs in the ESFRI roadmap, and some key creating these interfaces to FAIR related international
technical specialist partners, this initiative concentrates initiatives and informing the further developments
on creating FAIR services for the upcoming EOSC and planned in the next 4 years.
for the research communities worldwide. Common
policies, open standards, interoperability solutions, Acknowledgments. Support from the European
operational services, and stewardship of data on the basis Commission H2020 programme via projects ENVRI
of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re- PLUS and COOP+ are acknowledged.
usable) principles require a common approach. The
ENVRI FAIR includes as well further development what References
is actually meant by FAIR in the virtual service provision
in the environmental domain. [1] European Strategic Forum on Research
ENVRI-FAIR is the connection of the ESFRI Cluster Infrastructures http://www.esfri.eu
of Environmental Research Infrastructures (ENVRI) to [2] EOSC Declaration
the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Participating https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/eosc
research infrastructures (RI) of the environmental _declaration.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none
domain cover the subdomains Atmosphere, Marine, [3] EOSC Strategic Implementation Roadmap
Solid Earth and Biodiversity / Ecosystems and thus the
[4] https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/eosc
Earth system in its full complexity.
_strategic_implementation_roadmap_large.pdf#vi
The overarching goal is that at the end of the ew=fit&pagemode=none
proposed project, all participating RIs have built a set of
FAIR data services which enhances the efficiency and [5] ENVRI community website. http://envri.eu/
productivity of researchers, supports innovation, enables [6] ENVRI PLUS website. http://www.envriplus.eu/
data- and knowledge-based decisions and connects the
ENVRI Cluster to the EOSC.
This goal is reached by:
8