EOSC EDEN – Towards a Shared Understanding of What is Necessary for Long-Term Archiving: EOSC EDEN Core Preservation Processes

The European Union Horizon Europe project European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Enhancing Digital preservation strategies at European and National Level (EDEN) was launched in 2025 to support trustworthy digital preservation (DP) in research data infrastructures. This paper introduces the first output of EOSC EDEN: the Core Preservation Processes (CPPs). They are a structured yet flexible set of process descriptions that articulate the essential steps involved in DP. Developed by practitioners and designed as practical guidance, the 30 CPPs describe, in a hands-on manner the essential, system-agnostic actions that trusted digital archives should ensure. By offering a shared terminology and process model, the CPPs help bridge gaps between research data management and DP, and provide the communities with a powerful tool to support training, policy, and system development. In doing so, they aim to make DP knowledge more accessible, actionable, and interoperable within the EOSC ecosystem and beyond.