EarthScope, AuScope & EPOS unite for earth science innovation!
Geoscience infrastructures unite: Tim Rawling, CEO of AuScope; Lilli Freda, Executive Director of EPOS ERIC; Rebecca Bendick, CEO of EarthScope. Image: Supplied
EarthScope has joined the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between AuScope and the European Plate Observing System (EPOS ERIC), marking a significant milestone in global collaboration among leading geoscience infrastructure providers to address the planet’s most pressing challenges.
Towards greater collaboration
This expanded MOU aims to foster cooperation in data sharing, FAIR and CARE principles, technical innovation, and community engagement. By adding EarthScope to this strategic partnership, the collaboration will further capabilities and reach.
Rebecca Bendick, CEO of EarthScope, expressed her excitement about the partnership's potential:
"Joining forces with EPOS and AuScope is an incredible opportunity. This agreement is more than just a declaration of intent—it’s a concrete action plan that will drive technical innovation and skill development among researchers and IT experts. We’re eager for other global players to join this initiative and help build a truly international geoscientific community."
A unified vision for earth science
The partnership underscores a shared mission to advance our understanding of Earth’s processes, from monitoring natural hazards to tracking the impacts of climate change. Through coordinated efforts, these organisations will enhance the interoperability of their data systems, promote innovation in geoscience technologies, and strengthen their respective communities of researchers and educators.
Tim Rawling, CEO of AuScope, emphasised the importance of international partnerships in achieving this vision:
"Building international partnerships is essential to fostering equitable and inclusive geoscience research. By uniting efforts across continents, we can maximise the impact of joint investments, expertise, and data.
This collaboration is a vital step toward establishing FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data stewardship in our domain, ensuring equal opportunities for researchers worldwide."
Building on a strong foundation
The existing partnership between AuScope and EPOS has already demonstrated significant achievements, including technical meetings and the co-hosted town hall discussing strategy alignment at EGU in Vienna earlier this year. With EarthScope on board, the partnership will broaden its scope, particularly in large-scale data integration and international research networks.
Lilli Freda, Executive Director of EPOS ERIC, noted that the collaboration has been in the making for years, with ongoing discussions revealing the potential for a united approach to addressing global challenges:
"From the very start, we saw the potential to create real value for our research communities by working together. This Memorandum of Understanding is not just about agreeing on principles; it's a roadmap for concrete actions, especially in areas like data interoperability. In many ways, this agreement is the first step toward building a global Research Infrastructure for Solid Earth science, openly accessible to researchers everywhere."
The memorandum outlines specific actions, including a set of meetings and technical workshops in 2025 on topics including cyberinfrastructure and workforce development. The partnership members aim to, for example, share information about technical solutions and effective models for various efforts and align on common standards where possible to improve data usability. These initiatives will ensure that the infrastructures remain at the forefront of technological advancements and continue to promote Open Science globally.
A call for global engagement
The newly formed partnership is designed to be dynamic and open, with an invitation extended to research infrastructures from other world regions to join.
The goal is to foster the development and adoption of common solutions, paving the way for a more integrated and interoperable global research infrastructure.
One of the first orders of business for the members is the establishment of an exploratory committee that will review international calls for proposals aimed at solving global challenges and strategising on new frontiers in the Solid Earth science domain. This collaboration welcomes participation from research infrastructures across the globe to join us in building a collaborative, interoperable, and global geoscientific community.
About
EPOS, the European Plate Observing System, is the only pan-European Research Infrastructure for solid Earth science in Europe, providing access to FAIR interoperable quality-controlled data, data-products, services, and software. Its platform currently integrates data from about 500 data and service providers and ten thematic communities, distributed across 26 countries in Europe.
AuScope is Australia’s provider of research infrastructure to the Earth and Geospatial Science community. By providing tools, data, services, and analytics, AuScope enables scientists to understand Earth’s evolution over time and how resources can be sustainably utilised to support growing human demands. AuScope invests in a variety of observational and analytical infrastructures spanning geodesy, geophysics, geochemistry, and characterisation, as well as software development, research data repositories and analysis tools.
EarthScope is dedicated to supporting transformative global geophysical research and education. It operates multiple research facilities, including the NSF Geodetic Facility for the Advancement of Geoscience (GAGE) and NSF Seismological Facility for the Advancement of Geoscience (SAGE).