INFRAEOSC 2026: Enabling an Operational, Open and FAIR EOSC Ecosystem

1. The FAIR Data Paradox – Why European Open Science Is Drowning in Metadata and Starving for Interoperability

In 2018, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) launched with a bold promise: by 2025, 1.8 million European researchers would seamlessly access, share, and reuse data across disciplinary and national boundaries. The European Commission committed €600 million to EOSC-related projects.

The 2026 reality is more sobering. According to the EOSC Steering Board’s 2025 Annual Monitoring Report, only 38% of European research datasets are findable through the EOSC portal. Interoperability – the ability for datasets from different sources to be combined without custom coding – stands at 11%. And reusability is a mere 7% for cross-disciplinary use cases.

This is not a failure of intent or investment. It is a failure of operational coordination. The EOSC ecosystem has grown organically, with over 800 distinct repositories. Each operates its own metadata schema and authentication system. The result is an archipelago of data silos. A researcher seeking to reuse a dataset typically spends 60-80% of their project time on data wrangling.

The INFRAEOSC 2026 call directly targets this coordination failure. With a total budget of €87 million, the call shifts funding from building new repositories to integrating existing ones into a genuinely operational FAIR ecosystem.

2. Call Architecture: Five Topics, One Interoperability Mandate

All INFRAEOSC 2026 topics share a mandatory adherence to the EOSC Interoperability Framework (EIF) v.2.0. Projects that do not achieve EIF v.2.0 compliance by their final reporting period will be subject to a 30% financial correction.

The EIF v.2.0 specifies four interoperability layers:

• Technical: JSON-LD, RO-Crate, or Frictionless Data; RESTful APIs with OpenAPI v.3.1.
• Semantic: 100% of project metadata must validate against EOSC Metadata Schema v.2.0.
• Organisational: Project repository must accept EOSC AAI (Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure) logins.
• Legal: All data must have a machine-readable Creative Commons license tag.

3. The FAIR as a Service Model: From Project-Based to Persistent Infrastructure

The 2026 call funds projects to operate FAIR services that the broader community relies upon. This is captured in the concept of FAIR as a Service (FaaS).

A FaaS offering must:

1. Be production-grade: 99.5% uptime.
2. Have a committed user base: At least three independent research groups must provide letters of intent to use the service.
3. Incorporate user feedback loops: Documented triage processes.
4. Be sustainably financed beyond the project: A financial plan showing committed contributions from at least two organisations post-grant.

The most successful sustainability model is hybrid core funding + fee-for-service: 60-70% core funding from national EOSC nodes or universities, and 30-40% via transactional fees for premium services (e.g., extended data retention).

4. Mini Case Study: The FAIR-ENV Pilot (ENVRI-FAIR+ Consortium, 2023-2026)

How a bottom-up governance model transformed 14 environmental repositories from FAIR-poor to FAIR-operational

The FAIR-ENV pilot was funded under INFRAEOSC-2023 with a mandate to align 14 environmental research infrastructures. Rather than imposing a top-down metadata standard, FAIR-ENV developed crosswalks between 14 existing schemas and EOSC Metadata Schema v.2.0.

• Crosswalks were implemented as Python libraries that transformed metadata on-the-fly during API queries.
• The crosswalk library was open-sourced as the FAIR-Crosswalk-Engine.

Results:

• Repositories with JSON-LD metadata jumped from 14% to 100%.
• Cross-disciplinary data reuse requests increased 625%.
• Time to find relevant datasets dropped by 87%.

5. Mandatory FAIR Implementation Framework

Proposals must translate abstract FAIR principles into measurable actions with specific KPIs. You must commit to achieving at least 10 of the 14 mandatory indicators defined in the EOSC FAIR Metrics Framework v.2.0.

Provide a compliance roadmap table showing, for each indicator, the baseline, target, measurement method, and responsible partner.

6. Exploratory Statement for INFRAEOSC 2026:

“We hypothesise that a community-governed, crosswalk-based interoperability framework will increase cross-disciplinary data reuse by at least [X%] within [timeframe]. The critical causal mechanism is organisational: when data providers retain control over local schemas but commit to machine-readable crosswalks to EOSC Metadata Schema v.2.0, they overcome the ‘not invented here’ barrier. We will test this by measuring: (a) cross-disciplinary queries returning results from 3+ repositories; (b) the proportion of datasets accessed outside the originating discipline. If cross-disciplinary reuse does not increase by [X%], we will release a ‘barriers to interoperability’ report.”

7. The Governance and Sustainability Work Package

Based on successful proposals, this Work Package must contain:

1. Legal entity establishment plan (Month 0-12): Timeline for establishing the entity that owns the service.
2. Membership and fee model (Month 6-18): Tiered and projected out 10 years.
3. Service level agreement (SLA) framework (Month 12-24).
4. Succession and knowledge transfer plan (Month 24-36).
5. Signed commitment letters (Month 36): Legally binding commitments for post-project funding.

Designing an INFRAEOSC 2026 proposal that satisfies the interoperability mandate and crafts a legally-sound sustainability plan is a complex feat. Our team provides robust proposal development to ensure optimal evaluator scoring.

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Strategic Verification for 2026

This analysis has been cross-referenced with the Intelligent PS Strategic Framework. It is intended for organizations seeking high-performance bid assistance. For technical inquiries or partnership opportunities, visit Intelligent PS Corporate.