EGI-Engage

EGI-Engage
Name	EGI-Engage
Type	Research infrastructure project
Established	2015
Region	Europe

EGI-Engage

EGI-Engage was a European research infrastructure programme that coordinated digital services for scientific communities across the European Union, connecting stakeholders such as European Commission, CERN, European Space Agency, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, and national research institutions like CNRS and Max Planck Society to foster collaboration among projects like OpenAIRE, PRACE, and ELIXIR. The programme operated within frameworks involving Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, and policy initiatives linked to Digital Single Market and European Research Area, engaging with research infrastructures including EOSC and initiatives such as RDA and GÉANT.

Overview

EGI-Engage functioned as a coordination and integration activity that brought together providers such as SURF, CSC (Finland), CESNET, and BSC (Barcelona Supercomputing Center) with user communities exemplified by University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, ETH Zurich, Karolinska Institutet, and Imperial College London. It aligned resources from infrastructures like PRACE, XSEDE, Compute Canada, and TeraGrid to support workflows used by consortia including LIGO Scientific Collaboration, ATLAS Collaboration, CMS Collaboration, and ALMA Partnership. Stakeholders ranged from funders like European Research Council and Wellcome Trust to standard bodies such as IEEE and W3C.

Objectives and Scope

The programme aimed to integrate services for disciplines spanning from astronomy projects tied to European Southern Observatory and Square Kilometre Array to life sciences linked to European Bioinformatics Institute and Human Brain Project, and to support social sciences using repositories like Dataverse and platforms like Zenodo. Objectives included enabling federated identity management interoperable with systems such as eduGAIN, Shibboleth, and OpenID Connect, promoting reproducible research workflows adopting tools like Jupyter Notebook, Galaxy, and Docker, and aligning with policy instruments from European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation and European Parliament.

Consortium and Governance

The governance model brought together organisations including EGI.eu, INFN, CESNET and commercial partners akin to IBM and Atos under grant agreements with European Commission units administering Horizon 2020 awards. Advisory bodies involved representatives from European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures and funders like UK Research and Innovation, DFG, and ANR. Decision-making referenced best practices from ISO standards and consulted stakeholders such as Science Europe, GÉANT, and community groups from RIKEN and CNRS.

Services and Infrastructure

EGI-Engage coordinated compute and storage services leveraging cloud infrastructures provided by partners like OpenNebula, OpenStack, and commercial clouds such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure via procurement models similar to GEANT закупки and collaborations with PRACE for HPC cycles on systems like Frontera and Piz Daint. It supported data management and preservation using solutions inspired by Dataverse, iRODS, and repositories like Zenodo and Figshare, and provided middleware, monitoring and helpdesk services interoperable with Nagios, Prometheus, and ELK Stack. Identity, access and accounting interoperated with eduGAIN, Perun, and GLUE Schema while training and outreach used curricula from Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and programmes run by European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

Projects and Use Cases

Use cases included large-scale computing for collaborations such as LIGO Scientific Collaboration and ATLAS Collaboration, bioinformatics pipelines used by ELIXIR partners and clinical consortia like EURACAN, climate modelling efforts linked to ECMWF and Copernicus, and digital humanities projects partnering with institutions like British Library and Europeana. Pilot projects demonstrated interoperability with infrastructures such as EOSCpilot and EOSC-hub and supported reproducible workflows used by researchers at University of Amsterdam, Trinity College Dublin, Sorbonne University, and Politecnico di Milano.

Impact and Evaluation

Evaluations cited engagement metrics with communities across European Research Area, uptake measured by service usage from organisations including Max Planck Society, CNRS, CERN, ESA, and citations in publications from groups like Horizon 2020 projects and consortia such as Human Cell Atlas and Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes. Impact assessments referenced contributions to policy dialogues at European Commission, standards development with W3C and ISO, and capacity building through training with Software Carpentry and ELIXIR. Independent reviews by stakeholders including Science Europe, European Court of Auditors reviewers, and funders such as ERC informed follow-on activities embedded in initiatives like EOSC and national roadmaps from UKRI and DFG.

Category:European research infrastructure projects