Italian scientist Marialuisa Lavitrano has been elected to the Board of Directors of the EOSC Association (European Cloud for Open Science), an initiative launched by the European Commission in November 2018 to provide European researchers, innovators, businesses and citizens with an environment with services open for the management, analysis and reuse of research data from various disciplines. EOSC brings together 187 university and scientific institutions.
Marialuisa Lavitrano, who collected the highest number of preferences, was elected Director, for a three-year term, together with the French Suzanne Dumouchel (CNRS) and the German Klaus Tochtermann (ZBV). Ignacio Blanquer (UPV) and Sarah Jones (GEANT) were also elected Directors for a 2-year term, while Wilhelm Widmark (SU), Bob Jones (CERN) and Ronan Byrne (HEAnet) were elected for a one-year term.
The EOSC will federate existing scientific data infrastructures, currently dispersed across disciplines and EU Member States. With open online services for storing, managing, analyzing and reusing research data across borders and scientific disciplines, EOSC aims to create an online environment for 1.7 million European researchers and 70 million professionals in science, technology, humanities and social sciences. Among the Italian universities and research organizations founding members of EOSC: CNR, Trieste Science Park, Scuola Normale di Pisa, Università Sant. Orsola Benincasa, University of Catania, INFN, INGV, OGS and others.