Why I believe in the success of EOSC-Nordic

I have been involved with EOSC scenery for many years. Good ideas and smart people, but “rapid progress” was certainly not something associated with EOSC. In all areas, there were at least 2 or 3 different solutions and the parties were big enough that they were happy to continue alone in case no compromise could be reached. That often resulted for the main decisions postponed and therefore a lot of people were engaged in parallel tasks.

Luckily it is quite different in the case of EOSC-Nordic. Top level science is a touch international competition, and while all of us have decent level, to get the best results, we need cooperation. For example, most medical studies would benefit from having larger user base than just one country. Without trust and cooperation we would not have a Top 3 computer being built in the Nordics.

While we often do have our own procedures and policies that work rather well and are hard to change, there is always enough potential benefits from cooperation, resulting in a perhaps bit slow but also strong and steady progress. Also, the thoughtful and calm approach common in the northern latitudes allows compromises to be made more easily.