Dear all,
Please find below the my notes about today’s call. Feel free to comment/amend things as needed!
Many thanks for the great discussion.
Have a nice weekend.
Licia
SUMMARY CALL 7 Nov 2025
Participants
- Sara,
- Guido
- Sigrid
- Anders
- Anne-Sofie
- Rene
- Tangui
- Licia
Apologies: Jan, Sumithra, Lars
Notes
1. GEANT CTO above the net workshop preparation - Licia
The GEANT CTO Workshop will take place on the 27th and 28th of Nov: https://events.geant.org/event/1844/
There are different areas covered, one of which being above the net that also covers different aspects.
i) Cloud perspective
Jan shared an email about a preparation meeting in the context of the GEANT project WP that addresses the above the net aspects, I pasted it here:Regarding the GEANT CTO workshop: the
“above-the-net” work package of the GEANT project is organising a workshop for its cloud strategy forum and others interested on Friday 14 November, 10:00-12:00 CET. The intent is to present the same content and questions as will be discussed on the GEANT CTO workshop end of November.
From the perspective of our engagement as national service providers in EOSC, and the role of the GEANT collaboration in an EOSC context, that would be an interesting session to participate in, either as preparation for the CTO workshop, or if you can’t make that as an alternative for”.
ii) The role of GEANT as an e-infra in EOSC
GEANT, together with EUDAT, OpenAIRE and EGI have prepared a paper (I shared that before) for the EOSC A; the paper has been also shared via the EOSC-NRENs geant list and uploaded on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/records/17486825 <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fzenodo.or…>). Questions were raised as to weather GEANT has consulted the NRENs on the preparation of this paper either directly of during the EOSC NRENS calls that GEANT organises. None of the people in the call were approached nor aware about the paper.
Key points:
* assumption that EOSC is 'free at the point of delivery' needs to be countered with a transparent and fair payment model.
* Transnational access to services
* so far EOSC did not recognise the role of e-infrastrsture providers but this is changing with the federation - for most of the e-Infras it is not possible to contribute with national funding to the EOSC
* e-Infrastructures and RIs, should have decision making authority for strategic matters, such as technical interoperability in the EOSC governance.
* e-infrastructures should be funded 100%
Please note that I’m not sure this aspect will be discussed in the CTO workshop btw.
2. Recap from the Nordic meeting during the symposium - Sara
Sara reported on the Nordic meeting organised on behalf of the nordic ministries to start collecting inputs from the various (nordic) stakeholders.
Topics addressed:
* Role from the different stakeholders in the EOSC Fed
* Should EOSC A only focus on the federation or also on other aspects.
* Do we need a coordination for the EOSC Fed in the future (and in that case should that be the EOSC A in this form or different).
Different views; common theme was that EOSC has been there for 10y and not a lot has happened. It is important to note that EOSC’s goals changed from a centralised cloud to a distributed federation. Also agreements that project funding as an instrument is not sustainable.
The discussion also covered whether researchers should know about EOSC: different views on that.
There is consensus that the EOSC A should be there not sure in what form.
Next steps are to organise another call with other stakeholders not active in EOSC and not at the symposium.
@Sara would be the ok to share the list of questions in this group as well?
3. EOSC post 2027 (and models) and upcoming EOSC GA
EOSC A will share by next week a number of documents in preparation for the GA among which a neutral paper expelling the instruments available for EOSC post 2027.
It would be good to read the paper to better understand what the options entail. Also it would be good in parallel to start forming an idea on what EOSC A should be doing and see what instruments are available for that purpose. A more detailed papers with pro/cons will be prepared for the May EOSC A GA.
Sara asked what would be the best way for EOSC A to consult on this topics:
* Sigfrid: better to have thematic discussion by stakeholders
* Anders: agree to discussion on where EOSC A should head to - maybe this group is not at high enough level to have that. Kimmo and Gitte agreed that it’s needed, but maybe it would be good to have also a meeting including them. Sara noted that we are in these calls to inform our CEOs; maybe a more in depth discussion in the NDN Board would be more useful.
* Anne Sofie: thematic lines, as sometimes it is unclear to understand who people represent.
4. Next steps - Licia
The aim of these calls is to inform people in the Nordic NRENs about EOSC developments. Other people may join this group if each NREN wishes to do so.
A mailing is now created and that can be used to share questions, opinions, documents etc.
There was consensus not to have a recurrent call for this group (also to avoid an overflow of calls with a subset of the same people), but to have calls when needed.
There are a few things happening in the coming weeks:
- tripartite event in DK (end of Nov)
- GEANT CTO WS (end of Nov)
- EOSC A GA (early dec)
It was agreed to have another call after the EOSC GA to discuss about the papers received by the EOSC A members, the GA discussion, tripartite discussion etc. I will send a poll shortly.
Meanwhile please find attached Ute’s presentation for the mandated org explaining the instruments.
Best,
Licia

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Licia Florio - Senior Strategy and Policy Officer, NORDUnet
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