Building EOSC Ireland: Lessons from European EOSC Nodes

Building EOSC Ireland: Lessons from European EOSC Nodes presents the findings of a series of international engagements undertaken by the EOSC.ie project team between February and May 2026.

The report draws on visits and consultations with representatives of the EOSC EU Node, EOSC Poland (EOSC-PL), SURF EOSC Node, EOSC Finland (EOSC-FI), the Photon and Neutron Open Science Cloud (PaNOSC) and Life Sciences Connect (LS Connect).

The objective of these engagements was to learn from organisations that are actively developing and operating EOSC Nodes and to identify practical approaches that could inform the design and implementation of EOSC Ireland.

The report examines lessons learned across six thematic areas:

• Architecture, AAI and Federation
• Service Catalogues and Research Services
• Governance and National Coordination
• Funding, Staffing and Sustainability
• Sensitive Data, Security and Trust
• Community Engagement and Adoption

The report identifies common patterns across national and thematic EOSC Nodes, including the importance of metadata-driven discovery, federated access, interoperability, governance, community engagement and sustainable service delivery.

It concludes that successful EOSC Nodes typically focus on coordinating and exposing existing services and infrastructures rather than building entirely new platforms, providing valuable insights for the future development of EOSC Ireland and participation in the EOSC Federation.