OSTrails: Connecting Tools and Communities for a Federated Open Science Ecosystem
- 2025-09-17 10:45
- 11:45
- Room: 81/R-003A - Science Gateway Auditorium A
- Speaker:
- Elli Papadopoulou, , Elli is a digital librarian and research associate at the Institute for the Management of Information Systems of Athena Research Center. Her academic background is in Library Science and Information Systems (BSc) and in Public Policy and Public Management (MSc). Elli is active in Open Science from 2013 and for the past 7 years supports awareness, adoption and implementation of policies and best practices across the Greek academic and research communities serving as the OpenAIRE representative in Greece (NOAD-GR). Elli is also a liaison for Services & Technology Standing Committee in the OpenAIRE Executive Board. She enjoys collaborating with colleagues on Open and FAIR Research Data Management through RDA groups that she co-chairs, managing the ARGOS DMP service and co-chairing the EOSC-A FAIR Metrics and Digital Objects Task Force. In EOSC, she has contributed to policy, technical conceptualisation and implementation activities in different projects since the very beginning of EOSCpilot. This year, she embarked on a new journey serving as deputy coordinator for the INFRA-EOSC OSTrails project. Her research interests are focused on Responsible Research and Innovation, Open Science and FAIR Research Data Management, and AI. , Athena Research Center, https://www.athenarc.gr/en/home, Netherlands
The EU-funded OSTrails project is building a federated Open Science infrastructure by enabling researchers and institutions to discover, plan, track, and assess their work in transparent and interoperable ways. With 41 partners and 25 pilots—including cross-domain, national, and Horizon Europe testbeds—OSTrails is piloting the practical integration of over 80 interoperable tools and services. This diversity reflects the scale needed to support a truly federated Open Science ecosystem.
At the core of the project are two key enablers: a modular Interoperability Reference Architecture and a tool independent Plan-Track-Assess (PTA) framework. Together, these provide a shared foundation for aligning diverse research management services—from Data Management Planning platforms to Scientific Knowledge Graphs and FAIR assessment tools—across distributed infrastructures.
To ensure long-term impact, OSTrails has launched a comprehensive training and capacity-building programme, equipping research communities and service providers with the knowledge and tools to adopt and extend project outcomes. These efforts build on the co-designed pilots, which validate interoperability across varied institutional, disciplinary settings.
For researchers, OSTrails simplifies cross-institutional Research Data Management workflows and clarifies pathways to Open Science best practices. For service providers, it offers a practical model for aligning with EOSC while retaining domain-specific autonomy.
This presentation will showcase how OSTrails contributes to a federated EOSC ecosystem by delivering standards-driven solutions that prioritise interoperability and FAIRness as essential components of a sustainable and inclusive infrastructure, supporting both federation and the development of the Web of FAIR Data and Services.