Scientific Data Spaces - Experiences from the EGI-ACE project

Open Res Eur. 2024 Jul 9:4:136. doi: 10.12688/openreseurope.17418.1. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

This paper presents the approach adopted by the EGI-ACE project for the setup and delivery of Data Spaces for various scientific domains. The work was implemented by members of the EGI e-infrastructure and of several European Research Infrastructures in the context of the European Open Science Cloud programme. Our results are several Data Space services that enable the reuse and exploitation of open, scientific big data for compute intensive use cases. The paper illustrates the EGI-ACE approach through two examples: (1) EMSO ERIC Data Portal for seafloor and water column research and (2) ENES Data Space for climate research.

Keywords: Data Spaces; EGI Federated Cloud; EMSO ERIC; ENES; European Strategy for Data; GBIF; LOFAR; SeaDataNet.

Plain language summary

The EGI-ACE project created a number of Data Spaces for various scientific domains, allowing for easy access and reuse of open, scientific big data for compute intensive use cases. The aim of the European Commission's strategy for data is to create a common European Data Space, which will bring together relevant data infrastructures and governance frameworks to facilitate data sharing while ensuring control for individuals and companies generating the data. The Data Spaces created within EGI-ACE contribute towards achieving this goal, publishing curated data from international scientific communities 'in the cloud' and offering them for scalable exploitation and reuse through domain-specific tools and environments that offer data visualization, analysis, and mapping. The paper provides an overview of the technical and policy implementation approaches of the EGI-ACE Data Spaces and their potential future role in the single market for data in Europe. The paper presents the generic approach that EGI-ACE followed for the implementation of scientific data spaces, and illustrates this with two examples, one from climate sciences (ENES), one from marine sciences (EMSO).

Grants and funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No [101017567] (EGI Advanced Computing for EOSC [EGI-ACE]).