OCRE Announces Advisory Board Populated by Industry Experts

The OCRE project, which aims to increase the uptake of cloud services amongst researchers, has today announced the members of its Expert Advisory Board. The board is composed of experts in the field and will support and guide the OCRE consortium.

The board kicks off with a set work programme overseeing activities relating to adoption funding, advising on strategic cloud and EO service adoption trends, and leveraging their relevant cross-sectoral networks. This programme will develop along with the project.

Members of the EAB (Expert Advisory Board)

• Guido Aben: AARNet eInfrastructure Partnerships Director
• Ana Juan Ferrer: Atos Head of Edge Computing
• Marta Hoffman-Sommer: EOSC Executive Board FAIR Working Group Member & Polish Academy of Sciences Researcher
• Shridhar Jawak: Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System Senior Adviser
• Günther Landgraf: European Space Agency Infrastructure and Engineering Head
• Steven Newhouse: EMBL-EBI Head of Technical Services
• Nicky Stewart: Commercial Director for UKCloud Ltd
• Emanuele Storti: Eurodoc EOSC Officer & Open Science Ambassador
• Debora Testi: CINECA Project Manager & PRACE Board Member

OCRE’s mission is to break through bureaucratic barriers by connecting commercial cloud services with the research community through several tendering processes. The tenders will result in a framework that will ensure easy access to commercial cloud and digital Earth observation services for researchers with a focus on environmental, societal and medical.

In addition to this, OCRE also has at its disposal €9.5 million in adoption funding to be distributed to institutions and buyer groups that procure services through the OCRE tenders. This means the demand side is incentivised to acquire more resources from the winning suppliers from the OCRE procurement process.

Armed with better tools, researchers will be well prepared to take on Europe’s societal and medical challenges.

Find out more about the EAB and its membership by checking out their page on our website!