The UK Data Service will contribute to two new projects that will drive the development of new AI-augmented tools and services, making it easier for researchers to integrate datasets between different repositories and across multiple countries.
The funding, which will cover two new projects worth over €15 million, has been awarded to two consortia of partners across Europe led by CODATA (the Committee on Data of the International Science Council), and the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre.
The UKDS will receive just over €1.5 million from these awards to work on the two projects, with our participation forming part of our collaboration with CESSDA (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives).
Developing and implementing the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework for EOSC – CDIF4EOSC
The first project, which has been funded for €8 million and involves 16+ partners from across Europe, is called CDIF4EOSC: Developing and implementing the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
€1 million of this award has been allocated to the UK Data Service team to spend three years working on two work packages, which will involve developing 18 new tools that will use AI tools and API services to advance interoperability, FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse) principles, plus high-quality data integration services across the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and beyond.
The UK Data Service will also work with the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, Sikt in Norway and NCSRD (Demokritos) in Greece, to test these tools in practice, through using research from the different centres. This will involve working closely with three use cases on oceans sciences, climate adaptation and safe-and-sustainable by design materials development, to develop a suite of AI-assisted FAIRification tools and services and ensure integration with the EOSC Federation, EOSC Nodes and the Common European Data Spaces.
Steve McEachern, the Director of the UK Data Service, highlighted the foundation of the projects in the UKDS’ extensive collaborations on cross-domain data.
“In recent years, the UK Data Service has been working with partners around the world on the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework, a conceptual model for enabling interoperable multi-disciplinary tools and services in an environment that has allowed experts to establish the exchange of research and data in an overall ecosystem. The aim of EOSC has been to provide researchers and innovators in Europe with an open and multi-disciplinary trusted environment where they can publish, find and reuse data, tools and services for research and innovation, driven around the FAIR data principles.
“CDIF4EOSC has been born out of the WorldFAIR project, which explored the cross-domain needs that allow for the interoperability of data. We now have a framework in place that has evolved from that project and forms the foundations for these new technical developments, which will take us to the next stage of embedding them inside EOSC.”
Dr Simon Hodson, the Executive Director of CODATA, which will coordinate this project that started in June 2026, is looking forward to the distinct approach of the CDIF4EOSC project to build on the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF)
“This project presents a remarkable opportunity to furnish EOSC with a comprehensive and implementable guide to interoperability.
“It will extend the CDIF recommendations, adding profiles and guidelines, and use case based examples, to form a comprehensive and actionable playbook (a collection of guidelines, strategies and standardised processes) to advance FAIR Integration at the heart of EOSC practices, the EOSC federation and beyond.
“It will do this in three specific ways:
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Taking FAIR integration beyond the initial FAIR principles, by incorporating a number of key concepts, including those relating to data quality, the management of sensitive data, trust and data governance;
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At the metadata and data interoperability level, it will demonstrate how digital research outputs, particularly data, can be made FAIR-by-design (as FAIR digital objects) and integrated to benefit specific research objectives; and,
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At the systemic level, it will demonstrate how to integrate FAIR enabling practices, tools and services within EOSC and among EOSC and the Common European Data Spaces.
“Going beyond the original FAIR principles, CDIF4EOSC will develop a FAIR-by-design approach for creating FAIR digital objects.
“The suite of AI-assisted FAIRification tools and services will accelerate FAIRification at scale and have significant benefits for EOSC, as well as the European Research Area.”
The project will increase the use of automated metadata within datasets across multiple domains , including the social sciences, using existing standards to create an intermediary neutral “lingua franca” language between them all. This framework, called CDIF, will allow services from all domains to interoperate with each other, so researchers will be able to integrate extracted data from them more easily.
The new tools will connect already established systems together, instead of completely reinventing the wheel from scratch and creating new standards.
The project involves a highly experienced consortium consisting of: CODATA, France; TVS, UK; EUR-ODISSEI, The Netherlands; CESSDA ERIC, Norway; University of Essex (UKDS), UK; Sikt, Norway; NCSRD (Demokritos), Greece; NOC, United Kingdom; MARIS, The Netherlands; 7P9-SI, Slovenia; 7P9-DE, Germany; SINTEF, Norway; University of Manchester, UK; IOPAN, Poland; CNRS (DataTerra), France; IRD, France; INRAE, France; EGI, The Netherlands; IFREMER, France; GO FAIR Foundation, The Netherlands; GAC, France.
The substantive Work Packages cover: 1) Development of the CDIF4EOSC Playbook, led by CODATA; 2) Data Quality Protocols and Infrastructure, led by 7P9-SI; 3) CDIF4EOSC Tools and Services Development, led by the University of Essex; 4) FAIR Integration with EOSC Nodes and EU Data Spaces, led by EGI; 5) Use Cases, led by NOC; 6) Integration of CDIF4EOSC, Tools and Services for EOSC Federation, led by CNRS (DataTerra); 7) Dissemination, training, stakeholder engagement, led by GAC.
AI Readiness for Social Impact – AI4SOCIAL+
The other project that has been funded from 2026-29 is called: AI Readiness for Social Impact (AI4SOCIAL+), led by the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre.
The total funding this project is €7.5 million and will commence in October 2026. The UK Data Service will receive €0.5 million in Stream B of the project, to develop new machine-actionability tools for data repositories. Overall, the project will help to prepare the social sciences and humanities for transforming the adoption of AI and identify what kind of infrastructure and eco-system is needed to build around that.
Additionally, it will advance the AI readiness and machine actionability of the EOSC ecosystem by:
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Building a first AI readiness common framework to define and assess the enabling of AI adoption throughout the open scientific research lifecycle with best data practices and stewardship;
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Bringing tools for machine-actionability to federated data repositories, so that findings from social sciences can be used in other domains;
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Implementing a user-friendly, federated and portable infrastructure platform, compatible with the EOSC core services, to make more accessible the execution of AI-assisted research.
Steve McEachern, the Director of the UK Data Service, explained further what the project’s ultimate objective are. “It is to ensures that the full potential of AI reaches all scientific research areas, especially those that have so far benefitted the least from AI adoption, but have the greatest potential to be transformed by the new types of generative AI models and have a direct beneficial social impact.
“Ultimately, AI4SOCIAL+ has ambitions of using AI to enable the delivery of effective, positive, and responsible social change.”