The two-fold benefit of collaborating with EOSC-hub: the EnviDat story

Ionut Iosifescu Enescu explains why and how EnviDat is collaborating with EOSC-hub and the results achieved so far

How would you describe EnviDat to someone who is not very familiar with it?

EnviDat is the environmental data portal of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. EnviDat provides a range of services in the area of research data management with particular focus on (1) data publication with provision of metadata and Document Object Identifiers (DOIs), (2) maintenance of an efficient data repository for validated, quality-controlled and properly documented, thus reusable data sets and (3) supporting and providing options to researchers for sharing the curated data sets. As a repository, EnviDat actively implements the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability) principles by ensuring that the published research outputs have licenses that are as open as possible, and as protected as necessary.

Why EnviDat approached EOSC-hub?

EnviDat aims to disseminate its data sets as broadly as possible in order to foster international research cooperation in the field of environmental science and contribute to the ongoing cultural evolution in research towards openness, shared data and opportunities for collaboration. Becoming an EOSC-hub integrated thematic service provider means leveraging on an important platform for making our datasets discoverable.

How is EOSC-hub supporting EnviDat?

The collaboration with EOSC-hub is two-fold:

1) Using EOSC-hub services to make the EnviDat records visible for EOSC/EOSC-hub users, thus enabling an easier discovery of valuable environmental data sets that are owned by WSL. Currently 163 EnviDat datasets are already discoverable via B2FIND. 

2) Promoting the EnviDat portal in the EOSC-hub Marketplace and the EOSC Portal to increase our visibility as a portal. Furthermore, we hope that this step would increase our recognition as a professional institutional repository and portal at Swiss and European levels. 

What are your first impressions?

EnviDat is delighted with the professionalism of the EOSC-hub team and the fruitful integration process, especially regarding the technical interoperability. Furthermore, the feedback related to the integration in EOSC Portal, motivated us to start the process for further professionalizing the EnviDat portal on several fronts.

What are the plans for the near future?

We welcome the exchange of know-how and best practices with any members of EOSC-hub community that are interested in our initiative. We are looking at the future developments of EOSC to see how EnviDat can better align to it. 

Ionut Iosifescu Enescu is Technical Coordinator of EnviDat at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL.