16th November 2020
The challenge is to exploit the potential of distributed computing, applicable to diverse fields such as Covid-19, coastal evolution or deforestation
The Instituto de Física of Cantabria (IFCA, a joint centre of the Universidad de Cantabria and CSIC) is leading the
EOSC-Synergy project, one of the three major initiatives financed by the European Commission to launch the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). In this case, IFCA is coordinating the implementation of this "cloud", with applications in fields as diverse as health, space exploration and ICT, in eight countries: in addition to Spain, Portugal, Slovakia, Poland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and part of Germany and France.
One year into the project, IFCA researcher Isabel Campos reviews the progress made and the challenges to be met, within the objective of "bringing together the "cloud" capacity of research centres, joining forces in the development of software for instrumentation, cloud services, research...".
This virtual environment will promote open science and innovation, allowing scientists to store, manage, analyse and reuse data for R&D&I and education.
"During this time we have launched several thematic services, which can be exploited in several European computing resource centres thanks to the technological development we have put in place", explains Campos. Thus, researchers at IFCA and the Lisbon Engineering Laboratory have been able to analyse data from Sentinel-type satellites to investigate how coastlines change.
