Bob Jones

Bob Jones

This episode of Inside EOSC features Bob Jones, Special Envoy for the EOSC Federation. Bob arrived at CERN in 1984 as a technical student, writing COBOL programmes for the civil engineers digging the tunnel that would become the Large Hadron Collider. He worked alongside Tim Berners-Lee during the years the World Wide Web was being invented, and went on to lead the European DataGrid, the LHC Computing Grid, CERN openlab, and Helix Nebula. He was in the room at the founding meeting with Commissioner Carlos Moedas where the European Open Science Cloud was first imagined, and he served two full terms as a Director of the EOSC Association before being appointed Special Envoy for the build-up phase of the Federation. The conversation moves from CERN's culture of practical experimentation to the policy architecture of EOSC. Bob explains how the sustainability of the data, the standards, and the infrastructure are all entangled, and why a research community will only commit to EOSC if it can be relied on a decade from now. He answers the deceptively simple question of what a data space actually is, and reflects on how it might apply not just to industrial supply chains and health data, but to the social sciences and humanities corpus that sits at the heart of the LUMEN project. We discuss the 2020 Commission study on Expanding EOSC that grew out of his initiative, the case for pairing FAIR data with just data principles in an era of AI, and how to interpret data sovereignty without closing the door to international collaboration. Bob also reflects on his own path: from Birmingham to Geneva, from COBOL to special envoy, from theoretical physics' tools to the diplomacy of large public infrastructures. He identifies curiosity and empathy as the qualities that carried him through a long career at one of Europe's most international institutions, and he ends on the legacy he hopes to leave: an EOSC Federation that is larger than its first wave, trusted by researchers across sectors, and able to continue under its own strength once the build-up phase is done. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Yann Le Franc

This episode of Inside EOSC features Yann Le Franc, CEO of eScience Data Factory, work package leader for LUMEN, and head of secretariat at EUDAT. Yann traces his journey from computational neuroscience, where he built models of the spinal cord and worked at the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility in Sweden, into the world of semantic web technologies and data management. He explains the foundational concepts of knowledge graphs and ontologies: how RDF triples represent subject, predicate, and object; how ontologies layer meaning onto otherwise structureless graphs; and why these technologies matter for both human navigation and machine reasoning. The conversation touches on the limits of triples when representing the messy nuance of human relationships, and on the work in FAIR Impact on aligning ontologies that describe the same concept differently across domains. We explore why knowledge graphs are valuable for AI, why grounding language models in structured, contextualised data produces measurably better answers, and why provenance and FAIR principles matter when ontologies are themselves models built by particular people for particular purposes. Yann reflects on the philosophical roots of ontology and the impossibility of a single universal model. The discussion turns to EUDAT's recent selection as a candidate node in the EOSC Federation, and the governance and sustainability challenges of providing transnational access to compute and storage across European borders. Yann also reflects on the unusual dual identity of scientist and entrepreneur, his decision to return to business school, and his growing focus on sustainable business models for European research infrastructures. The episode closes with a return to neuroscience: why our analogies for the brain are borrowed from computers, why LLMs are statistical machines rather than intelligent ones, and Yann's quiet conviction that science will save the world. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Enrica Porcari

This episode of Inside EOSC features Enrica Porcari, Chief Information Officer at CERN, a role she took on in January 2026. Enrica's path to leading technology at one of the world's foremost scientific institutions is anything but conventional. A social scientist by training, she began her career as a park ranger before spending three decades in humanitarian and development organisations, including the UN World Food Programme and CGIAR. She discusses what that outsider's perspective brings to CERN and why a laboratory dedicated to understanding the origins of the universe has, for the first time, chosen to create a CIO role and filled it with someone from outside the world of particle physics. The conversation explores the relationship between fundamental research and societal impact, from the unintended consequences of CERN's most famous export, the World Wide Web, to the deliberate, inclusive approach to quantum computing through the Open Quantum Institute. Enrica explains how this initiative brings together scientists, diplomats, the private sector and communities in the Global South to ensure that quantum technologies address sustainable development goals from the outset, rather than as an afterthought. We also discuss CERN's relationship with EOSC, European values of openness and collaboration, and why she describes herself as a "realistic optimist" about the future of technology in the service of humanity. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Julien Homo

This episode of Inside EOSC features Julien Homo, CEO and Data Architect of the French SME Foxcub, and the technical coordinator for the LUMEN project. Julien discusses his transition from large private-sector industrial environments to the collaborative world of European public research, sharing how his background in knowledge representation and artificial intelligence informs his work in building large-scale technical infrastructures. We delve into the technical heart of LUMEN, exploring the concept of the Data Mesh, a decentralised framework designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration without the need for a single, massive central platform. Julien explains how this model allows diverse scientific communities, from molecular dynamics to social sciences, to share data products and services while maintaining their own specialised tools and cultures. The conversation also clarifies the distinction between data meshes and knowledge graphs, and why translating research data into "triples" is essential for connecting different discovery platforms across the EOSC ecosystem. Beyond the technical architecture, Julien reflects on the cultural and operational differences between private industry and public consortia. He examines the challenges of managing 21 partners and 7 million euros in public funding to create white-label solutions that remain flexible enough to adapt across different domains. Finally, we discuss the evolving role of LLMs and AI in knowledge exploration, the importance of "openness" for commercial innovation, and the story behind the name Foxcub. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Fotis Psomopoulos

This episode of Inside EOSC features Fotis Psomopoulos, Coordinator of the EVERSE project and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH). The discussion traces Fotis’s journey from electrical engineering into the life sciences, and his evolving understanding of research infrastructures, from an early focus on physical hardware to a realisation that infrastructures are fundamentally about communities and standardised services. We explore the often-overlooked role of software in the research ecosystem. Fotis explains why software has historically been treated as a 'second-class citizen' compared to data, and outlines EVERSE’s mission to elevate it through defined indicators of excellence and quality toolkits. He unpacks the distinction between Open Source and FAIR principles, and details the 'three-tier' hierarchy of research software, ranging from personal analysis scripts to critical community infrastructure. The conversation touches on the impact of AI on coding practices, where Fotis characterises AI as a collaborative partner rather than a replacement for human expertise. He also reflects on the importance of global collaboration, citing examples from African research contexts that offer valuable lessons for Europe regarding efficiency and software maintenance. The episode concludes with a look at the cultural shifts required to recognise software as a primary research output, and the inherent interdisciplinarity of 'writing with code'. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.