Over the past decades, Europe developed an impressive capability for aquatic environmental observation, data-handling and sharing, modelling and forecasting, second to none in the world. This builds upon national environmental observation and monitoring networks and programmes, complemented with EU infrastructures such as the Copernicus satellite observation programme and related thematic services, the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet), as well as a range of environmental European Research Infrastructures and major projects.
Blue-Cloud is combining both the interests of the European Open Science community, gathered around the EOSC programme and related projects, and the blue research communities by developing a collaborative web-based environment, with open and seamless access to services for storage, management, analysis and re-use of research data, combined with simplified access to an unprecedented wealth of multi-disciplinary datasets from observations, analytical services, and computing facilities essential for blue science.
Sara Pittonet at DOF 2024 - image credits: Bernal Revert_BR&U
Within this framework, since October 2019 Trust-IT Services is serving as coordinator ad outreach and dissemination leader of the Blue-Cloud project, the "Future of Seas and Oceans Flagship Initiative" of the HORIZON 2020 programme which is now evolving as one of the key initiatives contributing to the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (European DTO) programme, under the funding of the Horizon Europe programme.
Blue-Cloud 2026 is creating a Federated European Ecosystem to deliver FAIR & Open data and analytical services, instrumental for deepening research of oceans, EU seas, coastal & inland waters. The key exploitable results that Blue-Cloud is deploying for the marine research community are:
- A Data Discovery & Access Service: An easy and FAIR service for discovering and retrieving multi-disciplinary data sets and products managed and provided by Blue Data Infrastructures.
- A Virtual Research Environment: An Open Science platform for collaborative marine research, using a wide variety of datasets and analytical tools, complemented by generic services.
- Thematic Virtual Labs: real-life demonstrators for web-based open science ranging from biodiversity to environmental science, as well as fisheries and aquaculture.
- Workbenches for Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs): A number of intensive dataflows (workbenches) for selected Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) in physics, chemistry and biology, by harmonising, validating and qualifying large and various in situ data sources, exploiting the services available in the Blue-Cloud VRE.
Blue-Cloud 2026 project coordination is managed with a tri-lateral collaboration among the Project Coordinator, represented by Trust-IT Services, CNR-ISTI acting as Scientific and Administrative Coordinator, and MARIS as Technical Coordinator. Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Senior Project Manager and shareholder at Trust-IT, acts as Project Coordinator. Trust-IT coordinates communications with the project partners, ensuring progress monitoring, delivery check, and time keeping of project deliverables and milestones, overlooking also at establishing collaborative liaisons with other projects and initiatives at European and international level, and ultimately acting as point of contact with the European Commision and its Research Executive Agency (REA) together with CNR-ISTI.
Trust-IT also ensures consistent and content-rich communication and dissemination of Blue-Cloud results to its relevant stakeholders. Trust-IT released a Communication, Dissemination & Stakeholders Engagement Strategy and is responsible for the implementation and impact monitoring of the specialised outreach campaigns defined in the plan, across the 42 months of the project. This includes a Training Academy to deliver online courses on how to make best use of Blue-Cloud services, and on how to use and share FAIR data from marine Infrastructures and data repositories.
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