Dear ENVRI Board,

Finally we are able to share some information on the INFRA-EOSC-01 call on EOSC Nodes to ENVRI Board and interested RIs.

As you may recall, we were contacted by EGI on a consortium early this year on a consortium they were building and invited ENVRI as one of the partners in the proposal. EGI held a meeting together with the interested ENVRIs, and after that it was decided that we do not compete with our own consortium but join EGIs consortium where ENVRI would have a distinctive role.

After the meeting it was silent from EGIs side quite some time, as they wanted to see the final call text. In May we received more information on the proposal, and proposed role for ENVRIs. The consortium is large, and, as a result, as Andreas wrote already back when the consortium was discussed within ENVRIs, it is possible to include only few RIs in the proposal. However, it is still planned that the project will include some cascade funding, that would enable larger number of ENVRIs to contribute.

The consortium is led by Diego Scardaci and Tiziana Ferrari from EGI, and it connects to EOSC Beyond project, national nodes initiatives as well as potential thematic nodes from the ENVRI and SSHOC clusters.

The proposal by EGI towards ENVRI was not exactly what we were looking for, with around 1,3-1,5 M€ for ENVRI cluster. The overall foreseen funding for funded by Commission is around 8 M€, so the funding in general is quite limited.

ACTRIS, has promised to act as a leading ENVRI in this proposal. The ENVRI contribution is based strongly on the ENVRI Hub, and the work done currently in the ENVRI-hub NEXT project.

Attached is a description of the proposed ENVRI contribution sent to the EGI, written by the key persons in the ENVRI-hub NEXT. Aside of technical development planned, the main focus will be to prepare a Governance- and a Business-Model for sustainable operation of the possible ENVRI-NODE, supporting all ENVRIs in future.

The proposed RIs contributing to the proposal are currently: ACTRIS, IAGOS, Euro-Argo, LIFEWATCH and EPOS, selected on the basis of their expert contribution to the proposed activities.

We will keep you updated in the development of the proposal, and any opportunities that will be developed for further involvement of ENVRIs during the project. We can discuss this also further in the coming meeting of ENVRI Board.

With best wishes

Eija

Eija Juurola

Director General

+358 50 4154833

ACTRIS – The Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure