26 May 2026
ELIXIR Ireland is participating in EOSC Ireland, the national consortium tasked with designing the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Node for Ireland. As an ESFRI Research Infrastructure, ELIXIR Ireland contributes life science domain expertise in data, tools, and services, alongside experience with open science practices and the FAIR principles that underpin the EOSC vision.
The EOSC Ireland project is a one-year coordination and support action funded by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS), with a budget of approximately €600,000. Its aim is to establish an agreed and tested specification for an Irish EOSC Node, supported by a clear governance framework and business case for its ongoing operation. The consortium brings together nine institutions: ASIERA (lead), ICHEC, TU Dublin, University of Limerick, Trinity College Dublin, the Digital Repository of Ireland, RCSI, South East Technological University, and Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, each contributing distinct national infrastructure and domain capabilities.
ELIXIR Ireland's involvement reflects a commitment to contributing constructively to Ireland's open science infrastructure, bringing life science data management experience, ESFRI network connections, and a working knowledge of ELIXIR Europe tools and standards to a broad national partnership effort.
WP4 — Connecting to the EOSC Federation
WP4 is led by the University of Limerick, with Gavin Farrell leading the work package as part of the Culhane lab group at UL. Prof. Aedín Culhane and the wider lab group contribute life science expertise, and Alex Mahmood supports GDI use case development, drawing on federated genomic data infrastructure experience to inform Ireland's approach to EOSC federation readiness.
The work package is responsible for identifying the technical and policy requirements for connecting Irish research assets to the EOSC Federation, with a focus on interoperability, metadata standards, and use case development. ELIXIR Ireland's experience across these areas, from FAIR data implementation to European-level standards work, is a direct input to this planning.
WP4 also includes collaboration with ISSDA (Irish Social Science Data Archive), Ireland's member of CESSDA ERIC and a fellow ESFRI, bringing a social sciences data perspective alongside the life science domain expertise from ELIXIR Ireland.
WP5 — Sensitive Data Services
ELIXIR Ireland contributes to Work Package 5 (WP5): Sensitive Data Services, through both the University of Limerick and RCSI. WP5 is led by Trinity College Dublin with partners including ICHEC, UL, RCSI, and SETU, and addresses the challenge of building compliant, secure, and federated infrastructure for research with sensitive and personal health data.
Prof. Aedín Culhane and the Culhane lab group contribute through UL, alongside Dr. Laura Whelan (RCSI). Their engagement draws on experience with the Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI) project and Ireland's involvement with the European Health Data Space, and brings a practical life science perspective to the sensitive data service planning within EOSC Ireland.
What ELIXIR Ireland plans to bring to EOSC Ireland
As a national node of ELIXIR, the European life sciences research infrastructure spanning more than 20 member states, ELIXIR Ireland participates in EOSC Ireland with a combination of domain expertise and European network connections:
- Life science data: support for researchers across the full data lifecycle, including data management planning, FAIR implementation, archiving, and sharing, within the life sciences domain.
- Research data management: alignment with tools such as the RDMkit and the national RDM Coordinator role, contributing practical guidance on how Irish researchers can engage with the EOSC ecosystem.
- Research software quality: contribution to ELIXIR Europe's work on software best practices and emerging community standards for software quality and sustainability in reproducible life science research.
- AI/ML best practices: drawing on ELIXIR Europe's work on Open and Sustainable AI (OSAI) to help translate European-level guidance on responsible AI into the Irish research context.
- European network: active participation in pan-European discussions on interoperability, metadata standards, and EOSC federation, supporting Ireland's informed engagement with the evolving EOSC architecture.
