Community engagement: The ‘last mile’ challenge for European research e-infrastructures
Dimitrios Koureas, Christos Arvanitidis, Lee Belbin, Walter G. Berendsohn, Christian Frølund Damgaard, Quentin Groom, Anton Güntsch, Gregor Hagedorn, Alex Hardisty, Donald Hobern, Arnald Marcer, Daniel Mietchen, David R. Morse, Matthias Obst, Lyubomir Penev, LARS B. PETTERSSON, Soraya Sierra, Vincent Smith, Rutger Aldo Vos · Research Ideas and Outcomes · 2016
Europe is building its Open Science Cloud; a set of robust and interoperable e-infrastructures with the capacity to provide data and computational solutions through cloud-based services. The development and sustainable operation of such e-infrastructures are at the forefront of European funding priorities. The research community, however, is still reluctant to engage at the scale required to signal a Europe-wide change in the mode of operation of scientific practices. The striking differences in uptake rates between researchers from different scientific domains indicate that communities do not equally share the benefits of the above European investments. We highlight the need to support research communities in organically engaging with the European Open Science Cloud through the development of trustworthy and interoperable Virtual Research Environments. These domain-specific solutions can support communities in gradually bridging technical and socio-cultural gaps between traditional and open digital science practice, better diffusing the benefits of European e-infrastructures.