INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Number 07 | December 2011

NEWS by Massimo Cocco | INGV & EPOS PP Coordinator

EPOS PP - First year achievementsand priorities for Year 2The EPOS mission is very ambitious. Using newopportunities created by e-science, we plan to integratethe existing scattered European Research Infrastructuresfor solid Earth Science and thereby to support andimprove monitoring and understanding of the dynamicand complex solid-Earth System. The EPOS long-termintegration plan and its preparatory phase project (EPOSPP) aim to build a strong community through a sharedapproach, establishing efficient mechanisms ofcoordination and governance capable of first constructingthen operating the EPOS infrastructure in the long term.The benefits of EPOS to science are evident. EPOS willsupport scientific research by providing coordinated, openaccess to high-quality data and promoting transnationalaccess to multidisciplinary research units. But EPOS ismore than that. It is a breakthrough opportunity, givingvisibility and coherence to the Earth science community,increasing our capability to respond to global challenges,guaranteeing the long-term sustainability of ourResearch Infrastructures (RIs), reducing fragmentation,influencing national priorities, as well as optimizing theeffectiveness and impact of our data collection andsubsequent research. EPOS will create an implementationplan to identify and fill gaps in the general infrastructuressupporting geoscience, and will facilitate collaborationwith other environmental sciences to solve the grandchallenges facing the Earth and its people.During the first year of the EPOS PP, as a first step towardsintegration of existing national research infrastructures,we have engaged data providers (our stakeholdercategory I) and have completed an initial inventory ofEuropean RIs for seismology, volcano observatories, GNSSnetworks, and experimental and analogue laboratories.We have entered discussions with EuroGeoSurveys andOneGeology-Europe about combining our efforts for

integrating geological data with geophysical researchinfrastructures. Furthermore, we have collaborated withthe European Space Agency (ESA) and national Europeanspace agencies to develop and coordinate the GEOSupersite initiative. This has enabled us to include satellitedata within the EPOS integration plan, establisheseffective and coordinated links with the satellite Earthobservations community and links EPOS with otherinternational Earth Observing Systems.The information collected on candidate researchinfrastructures from EPOS has been assembled into anelectronic database, which will allow the user community(our stakeholder category II) to review and update theEPOS inventory. We have established thematic workinggroups to represent the various communities. Theseworking groups are beginning to develop designs andimplementation plans for the EPOS Data Centres, anetwork of community service providers for distributeddata storage and processing.The grand challenge facing EPOS is the development ofan innovative and coherent e-infrastructure architecture;this will provide a platform and service infrastructure forthe EPOS Core Services that will meet the needs of allEPOS communities. This e-infrastructure will supportinterdisciplinary data and metadata mining and willprovide relevant processing tools and computationalsimulations through the EPOS user interface. We havestarted to design the EPOS Core Services and haveestablished a working group dedicated to this task.

NEWS p. 1

ARTICLES

• EPOS PP - First year achievements

and priorities for Year 2 p. 1/2

IN EVIDENCE p. 2

ANNOUNCEMENTS p. 2

01

newsletterwww.epos-eu.org

Integrating European Research Infrastructures for solid Earth Science

www.epos-eu.org epos@ingv.it | epos.secretariat@ingv.it | Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia |

• Promoting bilateral cooperation with RussiaThe Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) hasorganized a workshop on Monday October 24th 2011 topromote bilateral cooperation between the EU andRussia. The workshop was hosted at the Russian Centreof Science and Culture in Vienna. One of the key topicsconcerned the solar and terrestrial research and researchinfrastructures and EPOS (the European Plate ObservingSystem) was invited to attend and contribute to theroundtable. The goal of the workshop was the promotion ofdiscussions, cooperation initiatives and networkingactivities among representatives of the involvedinstitutions and projects. The discussion focused on theexisting facilities of large research infrastructures andtheir future developments, as well as on researchmethodologies and key outcomes. Several Russian andEuropean scientists attended the workshop (seehttp://rp7.ffg.at/eu-russian_opendays).The workshop has been a good opportunity to sharevisions and implementation plans for researchinfrastructures. EPOS and the ESFRI roadmap werepresented as well as the strategy for the integration ofresearch infrastructures envisioned in the EPOSpreparatory phase project. The possible cooperationinitiatives between the EPOS research infrastructure andthe Russian facilities and infrastructures in solid Earthscience were discussed. A shared strategy to foster andplan negotiations and future meetings has been agreed.

Happy Holidays!

newsletterwww.epos-eu.org

Integrating European Research Infrastructures for solid Earth Science

IN EVIDENCE

Number 07 | December 2011 02

• A pathway to e-infrastructure: ResearchInfrastructure Inventory DatabaseFar from being a database of scientific data, the EPOSResearch Infrastructure Inventory Database is acatalogue which contains information aboutresearch infrastructures (RIs) and their composition:datacenters, databases, facilities, intruments,financial information etc.. Such inventory is the first step towards the creationof e-infrastructures, and it is now in a testing phasewhich already allows us to carry out some statistics. The inventory database will be soon open to usersin order to disseminateinformation on existing RIsas well as to identify existing gaps and shareimplementation strategy.

Silvia Filosa

Alessandro Bartoloni

Istituto Nazionale

di Geofisica e Vulcanologia

Via di Vigna Murata, 605

00143 Rome | Italy

E: newsletter.epos@ingv.it

T: +390651860652 | 636

CONTACT

www.epos-eu.org epos@ingv.it | epos.secretariat@ingv.it | Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia |

• EPOS PP Regional Conference 2012 After its first birthday, the EPOS PP project willorganize its first Regional Conference. It will be heldin Prague the 19th-21st March 2012 at Globus Hotel.The participants will represent both the scientificcommunity and the governmental institutions fromdifferent countries involved and interested in EPOS.The EPOS Regional Conference is a good opportunityto engage with, and explain the benefits ofparticipation in the EPOS community, promotenational harmonization, increase the visibility of EPOSacross Europe, encourage international cooperationand promote networking initiatives. The conferencealso provides an opportunity to integrate the EPOSPP partnership for Central/Eastern Europeancountries. More information on the EPOS RegionalConference will become available through the EPOSwebsite soon.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

To promote constructive and effective dialogue with ICTand HPC experts, we have encouraged the participationof EPOS partners in projects and initiatives led by the ICTand e-science community. So, we have already achieved important results thatidentify our mission needs and are now approaching thedesign phase of the EPOS distributed researchinfrastructure. The identification and design phasesrepresent the first two stages on the roadmap toconstruction. However, the collection of information andthe design studies involve more than just technicalrequirements and scientific approaches. They alsoencompass legal, governance and financial work. Wehave gathered details of the legal status and the financialframeworks of the various national researchinfrastructures involved in EPOS. This information isneeded to develop effective legal and governance modelsso that appropriate options can be discussed within theEPOS community. We have also approachedgovernmental representatives and funding agencies (ourstakeholder category III) from those countriesparticipating in the EPOS PP in order to involve them inthe EPOS enterprise.The definition of the EPOS roadmap is only a first steptoward the design of an optimal decision making process.The roadmap is a dynamic document that will be updatedand revised through exchanges of information andopinions among EPOS partners and the wider usercommunity. It guarantees that the goals, tasks, schedule& costs are appropriately defined and can be performed.In support of these tasks we have also established a RiskManagement policy that will include a well-defined riskmanagement plan and appropriate strategies formanaging risks. A dedicated Risk Management team hasbeen convened to identify, assess and report risks on thebasis of the defined Risk Management policy to ensuresuccessful completion, and minimize deviations fromtime- and performance baselines.

In this first year of activity we have also faced problemsand bottlenecks that we have had to tackle urgently inorder to keep the preparatory phase on track. Theseinclude the growing need to involve all of partners intasks and working activities, as well as ensuring thatpartners and associate partners are fully engaged in thedecision making processes. We must now develop aneffective strategy to identify and meet user needs.Although this is a task for the second year, definition ofan effective approach to contact and involve the usercommunity in the EPOS preparatory phase is a relevantand pressing issue for Year 2.The identified priorities for the second year of activityfocus on both legal/governance and scientific/technicalissues. We need to ensure all partners are on-track withtheir national roadmap implementation plans. Inparticular, we must implement and finalize the RIsinventory and identify operational data infrastructuresin order to accelerate the design of EPOS Data Centres andCore Services. A novel e-science approach will bedeveloped to improve partners’ and users’ involvement,because EPOS goals cannot be achieved solely throughpresentations and outreach activities during meetings,workshops and conferences. We have also initiated adiscussion to promote the involvement of industry andprivate sectors (our stakeholder category IV) in the EPOSintegration plan and design of services. Furthermore, wemust complete the overview of possible legal, financialand governance models in order to finalize thepreparatory phase and proceed toward the design of theEPOS legal body. This issue will be carefully discussed inorder to facilitate the adoption of shared strategiesconcerning the legal and governance as well as theintellectual property issues and policies for data accessto users. Finally, we plan to update and further developthe EPOS Science Plan to ensure that the projectcontinues to be focused on science and the needs ofsociety.