Czech science is strengthening its position on the digital map of Europe. The e-INFRA CZ consortium—comprising CESNET, the CERIT-SC center at Masaryk University, and the IT4Innovations supercomputing center at VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava—has successfully applied for the second wave of the EOSC Federation (European Open Science Cloud).
The establishment of an independent Czech node (EOSC CZ Node) confirms that Czech e-infrastructure is no longer an "isolated island," but rather an integral part of the European research area.
Strategic Shift: From Projects to Federation
While the first wave (2024–2025) saw countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy laying the foundations, the current second wave expands the federation by 14 new nodes.
Czechia has joined the group of 8 newly admitted national nodes (alongside Switzerland, Sweden, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, and Turkey). These are complemented by pan-European e-infrastructures such as GÉANT, EGI, and Scholarly Commons, as well as thematic nodes like ENVRI, EBRAINS, and METROFOOD-RI.
What Does the Czech Node Offer Scientists?
The core of the Czech node’s offering consists of proven services from the e-INFRA CZ portfolio, including OpenStack, Kubernetes, Jupyter Notebooks, and the Galaxy platform. A critical component is the SensitiveCloud TRE (Trusted Research Environment), designed to securely handle sensitive research data.
However, the EOSC CZ Node is not solely the work of e-INFRA CZ. It is designed as an inclusive ecosystem involving partners from across the entire Czech scientific community. Integrated services include:
- Data Stewardship Wizard: A premier tool for data management planning (primarily developed within the ELIXIR ecosystem).
- Domain-Specific Repositories: Including the Archaeological Map of the Czech Republic, the Molecular Biophysics Database, and the Czech Social Science Data Archive.
International Cooperation: 5 Strategic Use Cases
The Czech node is simultaneously engaging in five cross-border scenarios that demonstrate the power of federated data sharing and computational performance:
- MCVAL (AI in Healthcare): Multi-centric validation of AI models for cancer screening in collaboration with the BBMRI and ICSC Nodes.
- AI-Enhanced Galaxy: Integration of the national Galaxy instance with federated LLM services to provide advanced analytical pipelines for the ELIXIR and NFDI communities.
- Federated analysis of Sensitive Data: A federated analysis of sensitive data from the Czech Republic and Switzerland in trusted research environments and subsequent aggregation of the data to improve current research.
- Cross-Node LLM: Establishing a federated, OpenAI-compatible API for secure AI inference across European nodes.
- Federated File Sync & Share service: Join a federated network of providers, allowing sharing and synchronisation of data across multiple nodes.
Next Steps
On May 5, 2026, a key meeting of successful applicants will take place to define the upcoming technical and organizational milestones. This will be followed by individual negotiations with partners regarding the gradual integration of their specific services.
For more information and updates, visit the national portal at www.eosc.cz.
