EPOS - European Plate Observing System

• Mission & Vision
  • The concept
  • Impact
  • History
• Objectives
  • e-Science
• Architecture
  • e-ICT infrastructure
  • EPOS History
• Community
  • EPOS PP Founding Partners
  • International initiatives
  • National initiatives
  • Events
• Preparatory Phase
  • Overview
  • Governance
  • Partners and Associates
  • Working Packages
  • Working Groups
• Data Products
  • Seismic Networks
  • Laboratories
  • GPS networks
  • Volcano observatories
  • Data Processing and Archives

Preparatory phase

The EPOS Preparatory Phase aims at bringing the project to the level of legal and financial maturity required to implement the project as well as to prepare the technical integration of the distributed RIs.

The main objectivess of the EPOS preparatory phase are the effective integration of the national Research Infrastructures (RI), the development of a prototype e-science platform upon which EPOS will rely and the creation of the EPOS administrative and legal body.

An effective e-science platform shall foster integration of the existing national and international infrastructures, organize data flow between them, allow access to relevant data and data products stored in repositories and supply a platform for different types of users, including the computing and modelling community.

Basic guidelines in the development of EPOS will be

• Interoperability of national research infrastructures and requirements analysis

• Integration of EPOS data providers: access to Data Centres and technical facilities

• IT standardization and e-infrastructure implementation: EPOS Core Services

• Development and implementation of an EPOS e-infrastructure prototype

It is envisaged that data providers and data users will work together across countries, partners and sources within thematic Working Groups (WG) identified from the main EPOS components, which will be  established during the preparatory phase. These disciplinary working groups will play an important role in the development of an architectural model and the EPOS core services for the EPOS User Interface.

The user requirements of the EPOS e-infrastructure will be defined by the WGs in close cooperation with the user community. The WGs are expected to provide their conclusions within 18 months from their establishment.

Finally, the legal and financial structure is critical for the medium and long term establishment of EPOS. During the PP  various models of consortia will be scrutined including the recently proposed ERIC (http://ec.europa.eu/research/infrastructures/pdf/eric_en.pdf) which is targeted to research infrastructures such as EPOS.