Initiatives

inicijativeThrough membership and participation in the work of international associations and projects, SRCE provides Croatian scientists, university teachers and students with access to international networks and services intended for the academic and scientific community. Croatia's integration into the European Research Area (ERA) and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is thereby achieved.

SRCE, in addition to participating in international initiatives, also launches initiatives at the national level in order to enable the exchange of knowledge and experience among the key stakeholders and to enable the implementation of best international practices at the national level.

HR-OOZ

Croatia needs a national open science cloud in order to ensure the coordination of the development and use of modern e-infrastructure, and in order for the services and resources created in Croatia to become findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) for all scientists in the Republic of Croatia and to be included in the EOSC on European level as well.

Therefore, in June 2021, SRCE launched the Croatian Open Science Cloud Initiative (HR OOZ), which brought together leading institutions in the implementation and promotion of open science.

The initiative has two main goals. The first is the establishment of HR-OOZ - a national organizational and technological environment that will encourage and facilitate open science. For the establishment of HR-OOZ, it is necessary to define its organizational and management structure and the components’ technological principles of which it will consist, as well as to define and ensure its long-term sustainability.

The second goal is drafting a proposal for a National Open Science Plan and a proposal of the provisions of the law governing scientific activity in the part related to the open science topic.

The organizational structure of the Initiative consists of:

  • The Council of the Initiative, the strategic and coordinating body of the Initiative, consisting of representatives of all institutions, signatories to the agreement. Ivan Marić, the director of SRCE, was appointed as President of the Council, while Irena Martinović Klarić, strategic advisor at the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ), and David Matthew Smith, the director of Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB), were appointed as deputies.
  • Council working groups, operational bodies of the Council established for the purpose of elaborating individual tasks from the scope of the Council’s operations and achieving the Initiative’s goals:
    • Working group for drafting the proposal of the National open science plan
    • Working group for defining the structure and organizational principles of HR-OOZ.

Croatian RDA node

RDA – Research data alliance is a global organization focused on developing the social and technical conditions for open sharing and re-use of data and for fostering data-driven innovation.  In 2013, RDA was jointly launched by the European Commission (EC), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the US Government's National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Australian Government's Ministry of Innovation.

Thanks to many years of work on promoting and developing an open science infrastructure, within the RDA Europe 4.0 project, in September 2019 SRCE signed a contract with a project partner - University of Gottingen (UGOE), and SRCE became the Croatian RDA node.

SRCE as the Croatian RDA node:

  • provides support for research data at the national level by promoting the RDA vision and adopting RDA recommendations and results,
  • acts as liaison between national researchers, the global RDA community and national science funding bodies,
  • contributes to defining European policies related to research data, and
  • contributes to defining the RDA strategy and participates in RDA processes.

SRCE implements the activities of the Croatian RDA node as part of the Open science support service.

Memberships:

SRCE is a member, national representative or representative of the University of Zagreb in numerous international associations, and SRCE experts also participate in the work of individual international institutions and bodies:

  • EDEN  - member of the EDEN DLE Executive Committee
  • EGI – national representative in the EGI Council   
  • e-IRG – national representative in e-IRG
  • EOSC Association − national representative at the EOSC Association General Assembly and national representative in the EOSC Board of Directors
  • EOSC Association Advisory Groups: radne skupine Udruženja EOSC:
    • Task Force Long-Term Data Preservation
    • Task Force Rules of Participation Compliance Monitoring
    • Task Force Researcher Engagement and Adoption
  • EUGridPMA – European Policy Management Authority for Grid Authentication in e-Science
  • EUNIS – representative at the EUNIS General Assembly   
  • euroCRIS: The European Organisation for International Research Information
  • Euro-IX – European Internet Exchange Association
  • IIUG − International Informix Users Group, Management Board
  • Horizon Europe:
    • Programme Committee for Research Infrastructures, expert
    • Program Committee for Digital, Industry and Space (including related Missions and Partnerships), national representative
    • National Contact Point for the Cluster 4: "Digitalization, Industry and Space"
  • OPERAS – Open  Scholarly Communication in the European Research Area for Social Sciences and Humanities
  • REFEDS – Research and Education Federations, Upravno vijeće
  • RIPE NCC – Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre.