Last 15-16 June 2022, EUDAT engaged with the GEANT community comprising of national research and education networks (NRENs), research institutions and universities as a Bronze Sponsor at the TNC 2022 in Trieste, Italy. 

EUDAT Technical Coordinator Mark van de Sanden and Outreach Coordinator Rob Carrillo were present at the EUDAT booth answering questions on how EUDAT enables research data sharing and preservation across borders and disciplines. "EUDAT's vision is Data is shared and preserved across borders and disciplines. Achieving this vision means enabling data stewardship within and between European research communities through a Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CDI), a common model and service infrastructure for managing data spanning all European research data centres and community data repositories. In which European researchers and practitioners from any research discipline can preserve, find, access, and process data in a trusted environment, as part of the EUDAT Collaborative Data Infrastructure," said Mark. 

NRENs and EUDAT

EUDAT counts several NRENs (SURF, CSC, JISC, DeIC, FCT, GRNET, UNINET/SIGMA2) as members. NRENs help their members better manage their research data. NRENs can actively benefit from EUDAT through the following:
  • EUDAT is a membership organisation and NRENs can become a member
  • NRENs can also adopt EUDAT services and offer these services to their local organisations.
  • NRENs can act as a channel and/or liaison between EUDAT and National organisations.
  • Data management and FAIR are active topics, NRENs can leverage joint knowledge available within the EUDAT CDI.
Within EUDAT, NRENs can play different roles. Some NRENS are service providers and offer services and resources through EUDAT Ltd, are operating central and/or operational tools. Other NRENs contribute in the development of the services and/or technologies, or are active in documentation and/or testing services, or are active in the Board.
 

Membership Process

The EUDAT CDI is a membership organisation. Because of this new members need to be accepted by the EUDAT CDI Council. To become member a request can be send to the EUDAT CDI Secretariat (eudat-cdi-secretariat [at] postit.csc.fi)
 
Within the EUDAT CDI membership we differentiate between Generic and Thematic members. EUDAT is also offering services and resources commercially to customers. Providers who offer services and resources through EUDAT commercially and/or are operating central services or operational tools are level 1 providers. Members who  contribute to EUDAT in other ways, for example as a member contributing to developments, documentation, security, outreach are level 2 members. Generic, Thematic and Level 1 and Level 2 have different membership fees. 
 
The kind of membership which is more appropriate depends if you are a generic or a thematic organisation. NRENs are in general more generic organisations supporting a wide range of research communities. The other question, at which level is an organisation willing to contribute to EUDAT such as if the organisation willing and/or allowed to have EUDAT resell services/resources through EUDAT Ltd.
 
Find out more about how to join the EUDAT CDI
Check our page on How to Become a Member