Consulting with Global Data Communities to Converge on Semantic Interoperability Solutions for the European Data Space for Science, Research and Innovation (EOSC)

This poster was presented during the Poster Exhibition session at the Research Data Alliance (RDA) 21st Plenary during International Data Week 2023 in Salzburg, Austria on 23–26 October 2023. It was submitted by Kurt Baumann on behalf of the EOSC Semantic Interoperability Task Force.

Description of the poster

Interoperability is at the heart of the FAIR principles and the design of large-scale cross-disciplinary infrastructures. The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a European-wide effort towards such an infrastructure, aiming to deepen regional research collaboration and realising a shared data space for science, research and innovation. The advisory group on metadata and data quality has formed a task force focusing on developing and implementing recommendations for SI (EOSC SI Task Force). This poster serves as an invitation to the global RDA community to join forces with the European research stakeholders to converge on globally relevant and scalable solutions for Semantic Interoperability (SI). Semantic Interoperability is in fact not easy to implement. Any strategy for achieving SI must take this complexity into account.

The poster presents the work of a stakeholder organisation that represents the research community's voice in EOSC and focuses on the activities of a task force developing and implementing recommendations for SI. Realising solutions for semantic interoperability involves a broad spectrum of socio-technical challenges. The poster will give insights into the chosen approach and structure of an ongoing survey that will result in a landscape overview of the use of components required to enable SI across a wide range of disciplines and use cases.

Individual members of the task force are already committed contributors across various RDA interest groups and working groups and by presenting this poster the ambition is to showcase existing synergies and to identify new venues for collaborations.

EOSC Project members, research organisations and/or semantic experts are very welcome to participate in the survey.

Relevance / Link to RDA

The advisory groups and task forces of the EOSC Association operate and strive to form consensus in the same space as the RDA and there are many opportunities for exploiting synergies across the European and global communities. By focusing on developing and implementing recommendations for semantic interoperability the goals of the EOSC TF Semantic interoperability fit well to the RDA as a global platform and network of researchers to interact and collaborate with leading organisations, institutes and funders. In particular, the task force follows the same objectives by connecting to global semantic interoperability expertise and solutions facilitating the harmonisation, integration and implementation of data interoperability. Related topics are discussed across a wide range of RDA groups, including Vocabulary services IG, Sensitive data IG, I-ADOPT WG, and Professionalising Data Stewardship and the poster will contribute to strengthening and creating new collaborations.