GÉANT and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
A federated European Open Science Cloud can only thrive if researchers can connect, collaborate and access resources seamlessly. GÉANT provides the trusted digital foundations that help make this possible.
EOSC is an evolving federation of digital infrastructures and services that enables researchers across Europe to discover, access, share and reuse research data and resources across disciplines and borders.
As the pan-European network for research and education, GÉANT plays a key role in supporting this vision. Together with National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and partners across Europe, GÉANT contributes trusted connectivity, identity and access management, cybersecurity, cloud integration and other core services that underpin a secure and interoperable EOSC Federation.
Our involvement extends across a range of European projects that help shape, build and operate EOSC. Through these initiatives, GÉANT contributes technical expertise, community engagement and long-term sustainability, ensuring that researchers benefit from seamless access to the services, data and collaboration opportunities they need to advance science.
A pan-European e-infrastructure Node
The EOSC Federation is built on trusted Nodes. The GÉANT EOSC Node contributes the connectivity, trust services and expertise that help make federation work.
Building on GÉANT’s long-standing expertise in networking, identity and trust services, the Node delivers core capabilities that support interoperability across the EOSC Federation, including authentication and authorisation, secure access, federation services and high-performance connectivity. GÉANT works alongside NRENs and European partners to connect national and thematic EOSC Nodes into a secure, scalable and interoperable ecosystem.
For NRENs, the GÉANT EOSC Node also provides a gateway to the EOSC Federation. Organisations that are not yet participating through a national Node can onboard their services via the GÉANT Node as resource providers or use it to connect users with services and resources on demand.
The GÉANT EOSC Node builds on a series of major milestones, including the launch of the EOSC EU Node in 2024, the EOSC Federation in 2025 and the EuroHPC Federation Platform in 2026, all contributing to a unified, secure and user-friendly environment for accessing Europe’s research and computing resources.
What the GÉANT Node enables
The GÉANT Node acts as a gateway between the EOSC Federation and the services, resources and expertise of Europe’s research and education networking community. Here are four examples of how it can make federated access and collaboration a reality.
- Federated access to EOSC
The GÉANT Node will provide the technical solution for the Trust & Identity layer of the EOSC Federation through MyAccessID. It will connect national and institutional identities, enabling secure authentication and Single Sign-On across EOSC Nodes and services.
Value to users: Researchers and service providers can use their trusted identities to access EOSC services and resources seamlessly, securely and interoperably. - Access to European cloud resources
The GÉANT Node will make cloud resources from the OCRE Framework available through the EOSC Federation, connecting researchers and research infrastructures with European cloud providers.
Value to users: Easier access to European cloud resources, lowering barriers to cloud adoption while supporting European digital sovereignty. - NREN resources through the GÉANT Node
The GÉANT Node will act as a gateway for NRENs that are not themselves EOSC Nodes, enabling them to make selected services and resources available through the EOSC Federation.
Value to users: A wider range of services and resources becomes accessible through EOSC, while making it easier for NRENs to contribute their capabilities to the Federation. - Connecting EOSC and EuroHPC
The GÉANT Node will demonstrate how EOSC and EuroHPC can work together through federated identity and Single Sign-On. The use case will connect research data, EOSC services, cloud resources and EuroHPC computing in a seamless research workflow.
Value to users: Researchers can move securely between EOSC and EuroHPC resources, enabling data to be processed on European supercomputing infrastructure and the results stored and analysed through EOSC services.