Jessica Lindvall nominated to the EOSC Association Board
Jessica Lindvall, Associate Professor from Stockholm University and Deputy Head of Node of ELIXIR-SE, has been nominated as a candidate to the EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) Association Board of Directors. The nomination is made by Stockholm University together with the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish universities which are members of the EOSC Association. Learn more about Jessica in this short video from the EOSC Association.
EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) can be described as a digital collaboration platform aimed at creating a European system of tools and services to help researchers store, share, process, analyze, and reuse research data. The EOSC partnership has a tripartite governance: the European Commission, the EOSC-Steering Board and the EOSC Association. In Sweden, the Swedish Research Council promotes the Swedish involvement in the Association, and to represent the Swedish research system’s interests within the EOSC Association.
EOSC have recently launched the EOSC Federation where the vision is to put in place a system in Europe for researchers to find and access data and services for research and innovation. This “one-stop-shop” will help researchers store, share, process, analyse and reuse FAIR (Findable Accessible Interoperable Re-usable) research outputs within and across disciplines and borders. To date, 14 EOSC Nodes within the Federation have been launched.
For the Swedish candidate, Jessica Lindvall, an Associate Professor from Stockholm University that has spent more than half a decade in strategic and operational roles for national and European Research Infrastructures (RI), the EOSC Federation is a much welcomed initiative. “Not only will EOSC provide the research community with the consolidated tools, resources and services that will enable our science, but also bring the European community together, ‘for the people, by the people’, which in these times when the world seems to close itself more and more are much welcomed”, says Jessica. In her motivational letter, she states the importance that the EOSC Nodes and the Federation need to be built with a network of sociotechnical systems in mind. Only with the understanding that both people and technology are at heart for EOSC will the Federation be successful.
“I believe that it’s a significant advantage for the establishment of the EOSC Federation to have someone on the Board who has significant experience on building people infrastructures as infrastructures are not only made up of technology but rather driven and used by people”, Jessica says. With Jessica’s experience from ELIXIR, ELIXIR-SE and SciLifeLab, which are national and European research infrastructures around data, bioinformatics and the data life cycle, she brings knowledge on how to establish successful sociotechnical systems. In addition, she is an Associate Professor in Bioinformatics from Stockholm University and with this she is in close contact with the research community understanding their needs.
“The usage of EOSC and the alignment of Open Science need to be easy for any researcher. It should be easy to do “right”!”, Jessica says, “and therefore EOSC needs to ensure that all stakeholder groups, such as the research community and research infrastructures, are upskilled on what EOSC are to achieve, to get the buy-in from the community”.
With her work as a researcher and with the strategic and operational roles from distributed national and European research infrastructures Jessica has a broad and cross-discipline bridging network that connects to Universities, research organisations and research infrastructures. Trying to close the gap between the many engaging Open Science grass-root initiatives amongst researchers and research infrastructure staff-scientists and the decision layers in the same organisations is challenging but not impossible.
“I truly believe that we are stronger together when we understand that we all play a valuable and important role for the transition of Open Science in Europe. And therefore ensuring EOSC Federation is established as a sociotechnical system where initiatives closing the gap and boosting engagement and awareness of EOSC is key for the resilience and sustainability of EOSC”.
Sweden’s longstanding engagement in Open Science
With the support of the Swedish EOSC members, the National Research Council and the national research infrastructures, the EOSC community of Sweden believes that Jessica will be an excellent addition to the EOSC Association Board of Directors. In the supporting letter for Jessica candidacy, Hans Alfredsson, Chancellor of Stockholm University, emphasizes that Jessica’s strong national and European connections, combined with her research expertise and experience building Open Science and FAIR engagement via education, training and capacity building, will bring valuable perspectives to the EOSC-Association Board. In addition, her experience in fostering collaboration across multiple stakeholder groups will strengthen EOSC both at a national level and at the European level and specifically now in the early build-up phase of the Federation of Nodes.
“With the recent launch of the EOSC Federation, EOSC needs to ensure both the technical set-up but not to forget the people while doing this. Ensuring the merge between technology and people into a network of sociotechnical systems is key for the sustainability and resilience of the Federation. It will be a failure if the Federation of Nodes is built in silos. Therefore, initiatives around lifelong learning, education and engagement are key to bring people together to see the value of EOSC”, says Jessica Lindvall, and concludes with, “I believe my longstanding engagement in Open Science and FAIR and my experience from research and research infrastructure will bring value to EOSC in these time of building the Federation”.
Three Directors will be elected at the EOSC Association’s General Assembly on 10th of December. Learn more about the candidates on the EOSC website.
