OCRE To Launch New Open Funding Call for Cloud & Digital Services In Support Of Research Activities

OCRE today (15 July 2020) announces the publication of its first open funding call focused on consumable commercial cloud and digital services for researchers, available via its frameworks. The first funding call for projects will open on September 15th, 2020 and will last for six weeks with no extensions currently foreseen.

Under this new funding call, OCRE aims to fund projects which:

• Intend on consuming cloud and digital services to accelerate research outcomes
• Are able to demonstrate the impact of these services in terms of their outputs and agility
• Are not currently using these tools at scale
• Provide significant relevance in terms of their research discipline
• Form part of the broader European research community
• Hope to support further research and collaboration through their efforts
• Look to begin consuming services at year end 2020 or early 2021

Research institutions interested in putting forward projects for the OCRE funding can register here to receive notice of upcoming calls. 

A webinar will also launch the call on 15 September 2020, 11:00 CEST. All those interested in learning more about the funding call should join the webinar. 

European research produces the greatest amount of relevant data globally and the European Commission wants to harness this data for the betterment of European innovation. OCRE aims to demonstrate the positive impact that cloud and digital services have on research outcomes in terms of agility; scalability; efficiency; collaboration and data sharing through the use of advanced analytics; machine learning; AI; and collaboration tools.

OCRE is part of the broader European Open Science Cloud landscape and focuses on the delivery of commercial cloud and digital platforms providing for excellence regarding European research outcomes and ensuring that related data support the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) data principles.

Recently, the OCRE tender, which has an estimated total value of €600 million, closed. The related frameworks will provide for consumable commercial cloud services to empower the research capabilities of the European research community. The project will support a number of funding initiatives to drive the adoption of these services. Supplier contracts will be in place with call-offs available to the institutes by the end of 2020. 

Be informed as soon as more information about the funding call. Express interest now!