Global Open FAIR Implementation Nodes A lightweight, international kick-start of the Internet of FAIR data and services

DISCLAIMER:

The GO FAIR initiative will attempt to (a) follow the recommendations of the High Level Expert Group for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and (b) has as a primary aim to help kick-start the implementation phase of the EOSC, wherever possible and appropriate in close coordination with the European Commission. However, GO FAIR is a bottom up initiative started by early-mover stakeholders in the Member States, also with partners outside the European Union. None of the activities initiated by the growing GO FAIR consortium can therefore be seen as endorsed by the European Commission until explicitly stated otherwise.

Global Open FAIR Implementation Nodes 1Summary, context and process 2Why do we need an Internet of FAIR Data & Services (IFDS)? 5Why in the form of an IFDS? 5Why distributed? 6Why international? 6Why ‘Open’? 6Why ‘bottom up’? 7Why is The Netherlands offering initial coordinating help? 7What is the essence of GO FAIR? 8What are the first priorities of GO FAIR? 8What is the GO FAIR approach to implementation? 8What are the critical success factors for implementation? 9Why operate as a global open Nodes and ‘Hub’ structure? 10What is a GO FAIR Implementation Node 11How to qualify for a GO FAIR Node? 12What is practically required to become a GO FAIR Node? 12What are the benefits of having a GO FAIR Node? 13What is the financial commitment of a GO FAIR node? 13How many nodes are already committed to GO FAIR? 13How many of those are in Europe? 13What is the collective budget of the Nodes until 2020? 13

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What is the text of the Memorandum of Collaboration and who should sign? 14What are the RoE, how broadly have they been reviewed and endorsed? 14Why will there be a request for the European Commission to co-invest?

14How much cross-node coordination funding is requested from the EC?

14What is the legal status of the Hub? 14Annexes 14

Node Pages (template) 14

Memorandum of Collaboration with the Hub (draft) 14

Rules of Engagement (draft) 14

Cloud Coin (Credits) back ground Documents (NIH) 14

Links to sister Cloud Initiatives. 14

Summary, context and processThere is a rapidly growing, world-wide consensus in the scientific community, among science funders and policy makers that the transition to truly data driven and Open Science can only be achieved when we collectively build a globally interoperable research infrastructure.

According to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) report this should be a ‘federated, globally accessible environment where researchers, innovators, companies and citizens can publish, find and re-use each other's data and tools for research, innovation and educational purposes’.

In Europe (EOSC), The United States (The Commons), Australia (AORC) and Africa (EAOSC, ADIRC) efforts to collaborate are already under way to prevent renewed silo formation and to ensure international interoperability.

The EOSC is branded by the High Level Expert Group (HLEG) in its report to the European Commission as ‘The Internet of (FAIR) Data and Services’ (IFDS).

“GO FAIR”is an early-mover-driven ‘bottom up’ initiative to start working on a trusted environment where public and private sector partners can deposit, find, access, exchange and re-use each other’s data, workflows and other research objects. The GO FAIR movement aims at making fragmented and unlinked (research) data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and thus Reusable.

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These FAIR data principles actually have a much broader scope than just handling the research data tsunami. In principle they encompass all data related sectors. In The Netherlands for example, GO FAIR focuses on Life Sciences & Health, Food & Agriculture, Physics, Social Sciences & Humanities and Climate/Environment.The GO FAIR implementation approach is based on three interactive processes: building the technical infrastructure (GO-BUILD) is complemented by a change programme involving relevant stakeholders (GO-CHANGE) and training the data stewards capable of providing FAIR data services (GO-TRAIN).

The expected impact and benefits are substantial. Users will be able to search and analyse linked data sources much more efficiently, in turn supporting and enabling more effective research, the potential to discover unexpected developments and ultimately to expedite innovation. The increased speed and efficiency of data usage will also facilitate the rapid validation of hypotheses and evaluation of treatment methods.At this point it is hard to estimate the actual economic impact and added value of the GO FAIR initiative, but it is highly likely the implementation cost will be substantially lower than the long-term impact of the efficiency increase in a world progressively dominated by largely unmanageable and partially actionable “Big Data”.

Development of the EOSC vision, whether at national or international level, can only be realised given an inclusive, guided, open implementation environment. GO FAIR follows this approach by starting a series of coordinated ‘Open Implementation Nodes’, where public and private partners can offer FAIR services and components for the IFDS, under internationally agreed ‘Rules of Engagement’.

A critical success factor is availability of expertise in datastewardship. Training of a new generation of FAIR data experts is urgently needed to provide the necessary capacity. In addition, the vast market demand for FAIRification of data needs to be addressed through timely availability of entrepreneurial activities to support data FAIRification at large scale.

Part and parcel of realising this vision is the need to pool resources currently already committed to projects aligned with the EOSC goals, and to identify potential new funding sources for the GO FAIR Implementation process. In addition, it is proposed that a financial contribution will be sought from the EC for cross-node coordination.

The Netherlands is helping to coordinate the establishment of a series of Open Implementation Nodes in European Member States and beyond, with an additional specific priority to undertake a co-leadership role in Africa. Initially [x] nodes, coordinated in [y] European Member States have shown support for this initiative, which also resonates well in other regions like the United States, Australia, Latin America and Africa.

For those interested in reviewing this proposal or intending to participate in GO FAIR, it is strongly recommended that the High Level Expert Group (HLEG) report to the European Commission is read first, (this is where the basic recommendations and principles of the European Open Science Cloud have been summarised and the relevant web pages of the NIH (USA) ‘Commons’ are referenced).

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The proposed process is to publish the relevant draft documents online for review and comments from the Prospective Heads of Nodes and, by means of a confidential online survey get an indication of projects and resources aligned with EOSC related activities. The information gathered through the survey can then be used to populate the first draft version of the National or thematic Node Pages to be added to the proposal as addenda after review and approval by the Nodes.

Note of reference: Text fragments in this document that are marked by ‘inverted commas and in Italic’ are largely or completely copied from the report of the HLEG-EOSC.

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Why do we need an Internet of FAIR Data & Services (IFDS)?‘The challenge for an effective transition to Open Science is clear: if we do not act, there might be a looming crisis on the horizon. The vast majority of all data in the world (in fact up to 90%) has been generated in the last two years. Computers have long surpassed individuals in their ability to perform pattern recognition over large data sets. Scientific data is in dire need of openness, better handling, careful management, machine actionability and sheer re-use. One of the sobering conclusions of the HLEG-EOSC consultations was that research infrastructure and communication appear to be stuck in the 20th century paradigm of data scarcity. … The EOSC is a positive 'Cloud on the Horizon' to be realised by 2020. Ultimately, actionable knowledge and translation of its benefits to society will be handled by humans in the 'machine era' for decades to come, machines are just made to serve us.

But let's not ignore the facts: the science system is in landslide transition from data-sparse to data-saturated. Meanwhile, scholarly communication, data management methodologies, reward systems and training curricula do not adapt quickly enough if at all to this revolution. Researchers, funders and publishers keep each other hostage in a deadly embrace by continuing to conduct, publish, fund and judge science in the same way as in the past century.

So far, no-one seems to be able to break this deadlock. Open Access articles are indispensable but solve only a fraction of the problem. Neither 'open research data' alone will do. We still try to press petabytes of results in length-restricted narrative articles, effectively burying them behind firewalls or in 'supplementary data behind decaying hyperlinks and then trying to mine them back again. Computers hate ambiguous human language and love structured, machine actionable data, while machine-readable data are a turnoff for the human mind. As computers have become indispensable research assistants, we better make what we publish understandable to them. We need both machines and collaborative human minds in concert to form social machines; in order to do pattern recognition in complex, interlinked data as well as confirmational studies on methodology and rhetorics in plain understandable human language’.

Why in the form of an IFDS?The term ‘cloud’ in the name EOSC is understood by the High level Expert Group (HLEG) as a metaphor to help convey both seamlessness and the idea of a commons based on scientific data. The GO FAIR implementation consortium perceives the IFDS (and the EOSC as an important part of it) as a federated environment for scientific data sharing and re-use, based on existing and emerging elements in the partnering countries, with light- weight international guidance and governance and a large degree of freedom regarding practical implementation. The GO FAIR approach includes the required human expertise, resources, standards, best practices as well as the underpinning technical infrastructures. An important aspect of the IFDS is systematic and professional data management and long-term stewardship of scientific data assets and services in Europe and globally. However, data stewardship is not a goal in itself and the final realm of the IFDS is the frontier of science and innovation for all societies.

Why now?The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) aims to accelerate and support the current transition to more effective Open Science and Open Innovation in the Digital

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Single Market. It is imminent for EU Member States, but also for other countries, to stay tuned with and co-lead the technological and methodological revolutions that are taking place with regards to complex, dispersed and big data. The great potential of large and interconnected data sets is not maximised at any level of efficiency at this point in time, neither in the public nor in the private sector.

We strongly believe that only swift action in public, but also public-private consortia, governed by minimal guiding principles and lightweight rules of engagement to prevent vendor-lock in, monopolies and unsustainable solutions can lead to trusted access to services, systems and the re-use of shared scientific data across disciplinary, social and geographical borders.

Why distributed?An internet approach as proposed here is intrinsically distributed. Moreover, ever larger distributed data sets are increasingly immobile (e.g. for sheer size and privacy reasons) and decentralised. Centralised High Performance Computing alone is therefore insufficient to support critically federated and distributed meta-analysis and learning. Notwithstanding the challenges, the components needed to create a first generation IFDS implementation are widely available but they are lost in fragmentation and spread over 28 Member States in the European Union (i.e. for the EOSC) and the same is true for many other countries and even institutions within (larger) countries and across different domain communities. There is currently no dedicated and mandated effort or instrument to federate distributed data and services and to coordinate EOSC-IFDS-type activities across EU Member States, let alone globally. We strongly believe that a similar approach as followed in the early days of the internet, with a minimal set of strictly adhered to guidelines and standards, combined with maximum international freedom to implement innovative approaches in the context of these minimal requirements is the only way in which the urgently needed rapid development of novel methodologies, expertise and infrastructure can be realised.

Why international?The EC initiative for the EOSC has given a major international boost to the discussions and the developing collaborations towards and infrastructure to support Open Science and Innovation. It also propelled the discussions and global adoption of the FAIR guiding principles, in close concert with similar developments in the NIH Big Data to Knowledge programme in the USA (BD2K). Several ‘cloud’ initiatives are already developing in Australia, East Africa, South Africa and other partner countries around the globe, and it is now critically important to align these, also in the context of the G7, which will adress in its next meeting (post summer 2017) how to bring this discussion to  a global level and approach.Research and innovation are global and so, therefore, are the data that will be generated, used and stored as well as the services dealing with them. The EOSC cannot be built exclusively in and for Europe. Serious efforts are needed to ensure coordinated action with other regions. Europe, being inherently federated, is in a strong position to lead this initiative.

Why ‘Open’?The use of Open in relation to research has been widely discussed over recent years, and it is acknowledged that not all data and tools can be open. There are exceptions to openness, such as confidentiality and privacy. Open is also often confused with ‘for free'. Free data and services do not exist and providing high quality open data and services is very expensive.

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These nuances need to be respected; “Open” therefore implies “intelligently open”, often referring more to accessibility under proper and well defined conditions for all elements of the EOSC. [IFDS] Moreover, in the context of GO FAIR the term open also refers to the initiative itself. GO FAIR is not exclusive in any way but fully inclusive and will continue to open for new partners as long as they join or form a node and adhere to the Rules of Engagement [link]

Why ‘bottom up’?The High level Expert Group, (HLEG), in its report, has come forward with a vision of the EOSC as the ‘Internet of FAIR data and Services’, built in the same way as the internet of hypertext, based on absolutely minimal but rigorously implemented protocols (e.g. the TCP/IP component and locators, the PID and the domain name component). Obviously the EC does not have the mandate to implement this in isolation as it should be a Member State initiated process, with an aim at even broader implementation internationally.

Approximately [15] leading groups in Member States have meanwhile adopted the basic recommendations of the HLEG and are poised to kick-start the initiative with a joint, inclusive implementation plan to be also, at the appropriate stage, submitted for co-financing by the EC. On June 29, 2016 a meeting of the Member States’ permanent representatives converged on the vision that the actual developments and infrastructures forming the EOSC will reside by default across the Member States, rather than being developed de novo as a centralised international structure. However, the representatives strongly favoured working towards the design of a fit-for-purpose international governance and co-ordination structure that is robust, but light on bureaucracy. A Member-driven and governed, but preferably EC-mandated body that would oversee general policy setting, cross-disciplinary issues and international coordination would facilitate the implementation of the EOSC as a pan-European effort in a global context. It could also act as an accreditation and standards approval body to ensure congruence in the development of an ‘Internet of FAIR Data and Services”.

Both public institutions and companies in Member States will play a leading role, individually and jointly, in delivering solutions to the major technical cultural and societal challenges enabling the transition to data-driven and technology-assisted open science and innovation, and thus also in the EOSC.

Why is The Netherlands offering initial coordinating help?The Netherlands, partly based on its role during the EC presidency, is offering to play an active coordinating role through the GO FAIR consortium in the kick-start phase of the EOSC maintaining regular contact with the responsible EC units, all other interested Nodes in Member States and beyond, and all public and private entities interested in realising components the IFDS. The intention is to form a completely open and inclusive ‘coalition of early movers’ that is primed for organic growth, and is guided internationally by a partner based ‘GO FAIR coordinating entity’.

As a result of several government funded FAIR compliant initiatives, the technology and expertise is available in The Netherlands to link the existing systems of the relevant sectors in a cost effective manner utilising FAIR linked data approaches. One practical application of the GO FAIR approach is an appealing plan currently developed for the Dutch healthcare sector, the ultimate goal of which is putting citizens in control of their own health data through an infrastructure called the Personal Health Train.

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Recently a GO FAIR taskforce was formed in the Netherlands to address two issues:

1. The firm implementation of a strategy and an exemplar infrastructure for the Dutch component of the EOSC

2. The development in close collaboration with [xx] other Member States of a detailed, professional plan for the international component and the definition of a coordinating entity for the EOSC in its global perspective.

What is the essence of GO FAIR?‘GO FAIR’ is the working title of a proposal prepared by a group of ‘early mover’ Open Implementation Nodes in Member States and beyond for the completely inclusive, open and practical implementation of the recommendations of the EOSC High Level Expert Group (HLEG). GO FAIR will adopt a participatory, federated approach making optimal use of existing initiatives and infrastructures in the participating Nodes. In essence, each participating country1 will establish at least one Global Open FAIR Implementation Node (‘GO FAIR-IN’). GO FAIR IN’s may vary in focus, scope, size, composition and legal status in different participating countries, but they are ‘globally cooperating’ through a fit-for-purpose, jointly mandated and supported entity. In Europe, a lightweight Memorandum of Collaboration (MoC) with this ‘GO FAIR co-ordinating entity’ will be a minimal requirement for a GO FAIR-IN to claim that status. Public as well as private parties can collaborate in GO FAIR IN’s under internationally accepted ‘Rules of Engagement’ (RoE). Both the MoC and the RoE will be drafted and provided for testing by GO FAIR partners as well as in dedicated workshops planned by the EC at the recommendation of the EOSC High Level Expert Group, with strong emphasis on international consensus building. During the development phase of this proposal, there workshops are being organised by the European Commission to discuss these documents for final approval at the formal level of the EOSC. In the meantime, GO FAIR will contribute to these discussions (see online versions for comments) and follow the guidelines being developed for the EOSC.

What are the first priorities of GO FAIR?Nodes will largely decide on their own activities (see the MoC and RoE approach below) but so far there is a strong consensus on the needs expressed by the HLEG in the EOSC report. Although the list below is clearly not exhaustive and will grow (in a co-ordinated fashion) over time, it is clear that:

✓ New modes of scholarly communication (with emphasis on machine actionability) need to be implemented.

✓ Modern reward and recognition practices need to support data sharing and re-use.✓ Core data experts need to be trained and their career prospects significantly improved. ✓ Innovative, fit-for-purpose funding schemes are needed to support sustainable

underpinning infrastructures and core resources. ✓ A real stimulus for multi-disciplinary collaboration requires specific measures in terms of

review, funding and infrastructure.✓ The transition from scientific insights towards innovation needs a dedicated support

policy. ✓ The EOSC needs to be developed as a data infrastructure commons, that is an eco-

system of infrastructures.

1 Also non EU Member State countries may participate in the GO FAIR scheme, but an alliance of EU Member States will propose GO FAIR to the EC

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✓ Where possible, the EOSC should enable automation of data processing and thus machine actionability is key.

✓ Lightweight but internationally effective guiding governance should be developed.✓ Key performance indicators should be developed for the EOSC.

What is the GO FAIR approach to implementation?In GO FAIR we propose a bottom up, Open early Implementation strategy for the technical governance and funding needed to establish the first phase of the IFDS in the EOSC context. The approach is based upon the EOSC communication and the recommendations of the High Level Expert Group and will dove-tail its activities as much as possible with those taken at EC and international levels. However, the proposed approach will enable an early ‘preparatory phase’ in which critical activities can commence with motivated early movers without any delay, while adaptations can be made at any time by the co-ordinating Nodes. At any time, new Nodes can be added and as such, the GO FAIR consortium is entirely open, non-exclusive and stakeholder driven.

The GO FAIR implementation strategy is based on three interactive processes: building the technical infrastructure (GO-BUILD) is complemented by a change programme involving relevant stakeholders (GO-CHANGE) and training the data stewards capable of providing FAIR data services (GO-TRAIN).

All actual implementation activities will inevitably originate in a growing number of EU Member States and other countries. However, ideally these efforts should not be fragmented as they were in the past, but follow a congruent and co-ordinated approach.

The EOSC Workshop with Member State representatives of June 29, 2016 clearly identified the need for additional, subsidiary activity and a mandate at the international level, in order both to prevent further fragmentation and initiate active defragmentation of existing assets and activities in Member States, as well as at the level of policy influence, accreditation, rules of engagement, protocols and standards.

GO FAIR (international) will start as a modular and scalable implementation scheme for all science disciplines via national or topical FAIR Implementation Nodes across domains and through guided international collaboration in the three interdependent GO FAIR pillars. We have provisionally called the Member State and EC-mandated governance and accreditation body the GO FAIR co-ordinating entity, and we propose to promote the global organisation and coordination of the issues addressed by the EOSC actively, increasingly through similar organisations in other continents or by extending the mandate of the entity beyond Europe. This fit-for-purpose and participant-governed organisation will undertake the co-ordination of issues that are of importance to all Open Implementation activities, including

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international policies, guidelines, rules of engagement, standards and accreditation, all of which will be dealt with at a supra-national level.

Nota Bene: It is essential that within each pillar and within each participating country or organisation, optimal ‘freedom to operate’ must be safeguarded, with just enough co-ordination and international guidance to prevent silo formation, undue competition and fragmentation.

What are the critical success factors for implementation?In addition to the essential need for appropriate funding, a critical success factor is availability of expertise in datastewardship. Training of a new generation of FAIR data experts is urgently needed to provide the necessary capacity. In addition, the vast market demand for FAIRification of data needs to be addressed through timely availability of entrepreneurial activities to support data FAIRification at large scale.

Part and parcel of realising this vision is the need to pool resources currently already committed to projects aligned with the EOSC goals, and to identify potential new funding sources for the GO FAIR Implementation process. In addition, it is proposed that at the appropriate stage of maturation, a financial contribution will be sought from the EC for cross-node coordination.

Why operate as a global open Nodes and ‘Hub’ structure?Given the commitments to the FAIR principles as a core guidance for Open Science by the EC, NIH, the G7, the G20 and an increasing number of additional institutions, there are two counter forces in play:

On the one hand this strong political commitment is creating a lot of movement in the field, especially through the rapidly developing consensus that ‘good data stewardship’ based on FAIR principles is a prerequisite for modern science, and the consequential ‘mandatory data stewardship’ plans [references] being developed by major funders, including H2020 and NIH (examples).

On the other hand, major political institutions are bound by rules and regulations that do not sit well with speeding up the process in practice. In many cases these institutions can not be ’pro-active’, but rather have to wait for proposals from the community and the associated lengthy review procedures. A critical note, also emphasised in the HLEG report, is that the current slow, short-term and dispersed funding cycles of core research and e-infrastructures are not fit for the purpose of regulating and making effective use of global scientific data.

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It is therefore critical that ‘stakeholders’ in the field that are able to capitalise quickly on already committed funding and already existing mandates, nationally or institutionally, form a kick-start implementation consortium. Governmental and international bodies need to be approached for co-support based on a collectively agreed and results-driven strategy for rapid implementation. The Nodes and Hub structure appears to be very

effective in a number of European Research Infrastructure programmes, such as for instance ELIXIR. However, in the case of an ‘internet approach’, much less governance by the ‘Hub’ is needed than in governed research infrastructures. The ‘ESFRIs’ and other Research Infrastructures, such as GODAN, dealing with data and services, can provide strong co-ordination in domains and other countries: for example programmes like ANDS and AARnet in Australia and BD2K in the USA. GO FAIR should make optimal use of such infrastructure programmes and those that provide the basic underlying infrastructure for the IFDS,

such as the existing e-InFRA programmes in Europe and Internet2 in the USA, each focusing on their own core area of expertise, but in a coherent and defragmented fashion. The provisional name for the intended hub is “GO FAIR Coordination Entity”.

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What is a GO FAIR Implementation Node The early IFDS as the major ‘product-goal’ of GO FAIR will thus be implemented in a very light, internationally operational Nodes-and-‘Hub’ structure, where the ‘Hub’ is not directing, but is mandated and staffed by the Nodes (dedicated personnel may also be employed in case the Nodes deem that necessary [PHoN’s please comment]) The ‘Hub’ assists the Nodes in cross-domain and international coordination and governance, only where deemed necessary by the Nodes.

The GO FAIR Implementation Nodes will collectively deliver the implementation needs to make the IFDS a reality. They will self-coordinate through a central light-weight Hub structure (provisionally called the GO FAIR-Hub) that is serving the nodes and is collectively funded and managed. The global IFDS will be a confederation of regional FAIR compliant cloud environments.

The GO FAIR initiative will ensure that the collective, globally operational nodes will consolidate and, where needed, develop the various components of the IFDS, ranging from broadband networks and HPC facilities to standards, ontologies and expertise, in such a way that fragmentation and silo formation is effectively prevented, allowing a globally interoperable structure to emerge, comparable to the first iteration of the internet.

A GO FAIR Implementation Node can be any entity or partnership that is providing a component or service in the IFDS and complies with the Rules of Engagement that have been collectively agreed and adopted by the Nodes. GO FAIR Implementation Nodes offering IFDS components and services have a higher probability of being accepted by major funders as ‘certified cloud providers’2 . Partners in certified nodes will likely become preferred cloud providers in the global network of IFDS components (the regional clouds shown in figure 2).

Nodes can be formed (nationally or internationally, domain specific or cross domain, technical or educational) to address any of the IFDS priorities: for example to focus on ontology or standards development, data publishing, creating apps, authentication schemes, training materials, tools to support data stewardship, visualisation of complex results, high performance distributed learning, etc. In fact, nodes can be formed on any component needed for a fully functional IFDS. It is important that they collaborate and coordinate with the help of the self-initiated and governed ‘Hub’ to maximise efficiency and minimise the risk for duplication of effort and fragmentation.

The IFDS will be serving a global multi-billion euro/dollar annual market for data stewardship and analytics that is likely to be increasingly financed through a voucher-type system of dedicated funds, provisionally called ‘Vouchers for certified FAIR data service providers’. Certified FAIR data service providers3 can bill for cloud services and therefore address a global, rapidly growing new market.

2 It is possible to develop a component of the IFDS independently from any nodes and become a certified cloud provider, but this will be more cumbersome.

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How to qualify for a GO FAIR Node?The first step in formalising the collaborative effort to make the Internet of FAIR data and Services a reality is to make an inventory of potential partners and their current and future contributions to the GO FAIR initiative.Many prospective partners have already expressed their interest in joining GO FAIR and the interim implementation team is still soliciting additional potential new partners to indicate their commitment to joining the initiative as a GO FAIR Implementation Node.

Part of the information gathering process is identifying projects and funding already geared towards EOSC and GO FAIR related topics from prospective GO FAIR partners, and opportunities to jointly acquire additional funding. So called ‘quartermasters’ are actively co-editing this proposal and can commit to be a ‘Prospective Head of Node (PHoN) or propose one on behalf of the Node.

PHoN’s are willing to commit to:

1. Co-Developing this proposal2. Collaborating towards the joint realisation of the Internet of FAIR data and Services3. If still needed, to act as the quartermaster for a Node (given a mandate from partners or

nationally) if a Node does not yet exist 4. Acting as or appointing the first Head of Node once the Node is established5. Adhere to the FAIR principles6. Adhere to the Rules of Engagement (working document in development)7. Sign the collaboration Memorandum of Collaboration with the GO FAIR Coordination Hub8. Contributing either in kind or in cash to the GO FAIR initiative9. Write the national or topical Node plan (2 pager, see template) in the broader GO FAIR

roadmap plan.

If you are interested in joining the GO FAIR initiative, please fill out the GO-FAIR information survey.

What is practically required to become a GO FAIR Node?✓ A legal entity (any) mandated by the Node partners to sign the MoC. ✓ A prospective 'Head of Node' (person) with a mandate from the hosting organisation✓ A topic (or multiple topics) that serves a component of the IFDS✓ The commitment to be involved in shaping the GO FAIR proposal, the Rules of

Engagement and the Memorandum of Collaboration (MoC) with the 'Hub'✓ The commitment to engage prospective partners able to deliver on the focus area of the

Node to co-develop and eventually sign the Rules of Engagement (RoE)✓ The commitment to sign the agreed collaboration Memorandum of Collaboration (MoC)✓ The commitment of the Node to help co-finance the coordinating (regional) Hub with an

agreed percentage of its investments in EOSC components

3 Called Conformant Cloud Providers in the USA and potentially different again in other continents

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✓ The commitment to provide a person to help run the Hub functionalities (entirely determined by the collective Nodes)

What are the benefits of having a GO FAIR Node?✓ A formal relationship with the regional and international parties realising the EOSC and

the various sister-Open Science and Research Clouds✓ Structural lines of information and certification towards optional and competitive

services✓ Possibility to opt for execution and implementation tenders from, for instance, the

European Commission and / or the ‘GO FAIR Hub’✓ Becoming self-sustainable through partaking in the anticipated Vouchers for certified

FAIR data service providers’ income from the Node partners✓ Optimal and equal partnership in global innovation, education and knowledge-economic

development

What is the financial commitment of a GO FAIR node?

✓ Make current and intended projects and investments dedicated to Open Science and the EOSC/IFDS aligned:- Open Science related initiatives and projects- FAIR data related initiatives and projects- Infrastructural investments related to a future EOSC/IFDS

✓ Commit to a tangible contribution to international coordination and advocacy through the GO FAIR Coordination Hub

How many nodes are already committed to GO FAIR?(see spreadsheet BM)

How many of those are in Europe?(see spreadsheet BM)

What is the collective budget of the Nodes until 2020?Part and parcel of the collaborative GO FAIR Implementation plan is to produce an overview of all Open Science and Internet of FAIR Data and Services related activities in the Nodes and beyond. The collective budget of all Nodes, represented in the Node Commitment Pages in the Addendum list total € ……..

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What is the text of the Memorandum of Collaboration and who should sign?The Memorandum of Collaboration is available on the GO FAIR website. It is currently still open for review for all potential Node partners.

What are the RoE, how broadly have they been reviewed and endorsed?The Rules of Engagement are available on the GO FAIR website. They are currently still open for review for all potential Node partners. Early January the HLEG of the EC will have a review session and all suggestions and comments provided online will be taken into consideration. Once the final version has been approved it will become available under the section ‘documents’.

Why will there be a request for the European Commission to co-invest?The subsidiary role of the European Open Science Cloud initiative and the RTD co-ordinating Unit is fundamentally important to the co-development of a federated structure in many Member States of the Union. The endorsement and co-financing of the GO FAIR approach and especially to the Hub activities would give the global GO FAIR consortium a more formal status and this will act as a magnet to attract more Nodes in the EU itself and globally. The consortium will also ask non-EC funding for the international coordination or meeting aspects of the GO FAIR approach, for example from the relevant institutions in the USA, Australia, Japan and others. The international co-ordination of a soft-guided effort to create the IFDS is indispensable, but needs to be well organised initially by the stakeholders themselves so as to ensure that the IFDS provides the data and services that the research and innovation communities and society at large really need. Too many examples have been encountered in the past where infrastructures and services were built in relative isolation from the prospective users, which has lead to the current fragmented and scattered landscape of infrastructures that are not optimally connected and interoperable.

How much cross-node coordination funding is requested from the EC?To be discussed with partners once the financial size of the GO FAIR start consortium total investment has been determined.

What is the legal status of the Hub?The legal status of the GO FAIR Coordination Hub will be determined based upon discussions with all Heads of Nodes and the HLEG of the EC.

Annexes

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Node Pages (template)Memorandum of Collaboration with the Hub (draft)Rules of Engagement (draft)Cloud Coin (Credits) background Documents (NIH)Links to sister Cloud Initiatives.

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