Research-Infrastructure

I have been often asked by people outside of my domain what is my job. As many jobs in the IT domain, it is a little bit difficult to explain what we do: it is quite technical and abstract. It has to do with structures that do not exist in reality. It has to do with planning, with considering sustainability of the envisaged activities. We work with bits, code, data structures, metadata, with management of huge IT objects and initiatives. ...

There are moments when, sometimes almost unexpectedly, you find yourself taking stock of all the work done in previous years. That kind of meticulous work, made of small daily refinements and microscopic steps forward that you may not even notice. In fact, sometimes it feels as if you are standing still. Then opportunities arrive when… BOOM… everything is illuminated by a new light and the puzzle comes together. What emerges is a beautiful mosaic, with thousands of tiny tiles placed with patience and consistency. ...

Interview with Daniele Bailo, Zhiming Zhao, and Ari Asmi, who explain the key components forming the ENVRI-hub: the ENVRI Catalogue of Services, the ENVRI Knowledge Base, and the ENVRI Use Cases. Daniele, can you explain in more detail why these three components are crucial to the ENVRI-hub? Daniele: These are three distinct but complementary elements used as containers to support the provision of heterogeneous datasets, services, and software within ENVRI. ...

(This article was originally written for VRE4EIC Newsletter. Follow this link to the original source). The European Plate Observing System (EPOS) highlights how its research infrastructure has become more efficient and user friendly by utilizing technology developed in the frame of the EU H2020 VRE4EIC project. In the last decades quite an amount of tools, technologies and software has been developed to support and improve research throughout the entire data lifecycle[1]. This includes software, modeling tools, and even code that can be used and re-used by researchers around the world. However, more and more emphasis has been given to the structural components that enable a Research Infrastructure[2] to be sustainable, robust and, even most importantly, compliant to the FAIR principles[3]. Such principles prescribe–in order to enable reproducible science–that data need to be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. It is usually up to research infrastructure designers, developers and managers to find the best architecture and technologies to enable FAIR to become reality in their scientific domain. However, looking transversally at science domains, it is clear that there is a number of challenges common to several communities, as evidenced by the common requirements elicitation and analysis of existing technical assets carried out both in the VRE4EIC and ENVRIplus project[4]. In this framework, VRE4EIC is promoting the adoption of common, standard technical solutions in order to facilitate Research Infrastructures in facing shared challenges and thus complying with FAIR principles. This is the case of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS), a Distributed Research Infrastructure long-term plan to facilitate integrated use of data, data products, and facilities from distributed research infrastructures for solid Earth science in Europe. ...

It feels a little strange: I am both proud of and slightly shy about the video we released in the framework of the VRE4EIC project. It was funny: I had just landed at Schiphol airport and rushed to TU Delft University. I suddenly found myself at the New Media Center, in front of a camera, inside a soundproof studio with a bright green background, with a few people watching, or perhaps staring, from behind the soundproof glass. Then I had to start speaking with my southern European English accent. That was the embarrassing part. ...