16/12/2022 by Julia Vera (Seascape Belgium)
The Blue-Cloud pilot project recently celebrated its Final Conference in Brussels (8 December 2022).
The event was an opportunity to learn about the main results and achievements of this key component of the EU “Future of Seas and Oceans Flagship Initiative”. During the event, Project representatives shared the key messages and conclusions stemming from this 3-year effort to build a “marine” thematic community within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
Also, as part of the event’s Agenda, a forward look to the road ahead for Blue-Cloud was presented, as reflected in Blue-Cloud’s Strategic Roadmap to 2030. This forward looked was enriched with contributions from a diverse pool of experts, who joined the program to provide feedback and input into the role that Blue-Cloud can play in evolving a thriving EU marine digital knowledge system in support of the EU Green Deal, Mission Ocean & the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, teaming up and building synergies with other strategic, relevant EU projects and initiatives.
The GREAT project was showcased during the conference, represented by Tiziana Ferrari (EGI Foundation). Specific opportunities were identified in terms of establishing links between Blue-Cloud’s community of practice and the work that GREAT will evolve, bringing input from this community into the stakeholder discussions that will contribute to shape recommendations towards the governance and technical architecture of the future Green Deal Data Space.
GREAT Project partner Seascape Belgium was responsible for leading the development of Blue-Cloud’s Strategic Roadmap to 2030 as a community effort and will support linkages between GREAT and Blue-Cloud through the next stage of Blue-Cloud’s developments, funded under the HE Blue-Cloud 2026 project that will kick-off in January 2023.
Other initiatives, such as the Iliad project, have also expressed interest in establishing connections with GREAT. The event was useful to also identify further projects bringing together communities of potential interest for GREAT, such as the EU Farmbook. project.
