Today’s research depends on a wide variety of digital tools and platforms. However, these systems frequently operate in isolation. Researchers repeatedly enter the same information across systems. Support staff find it difficult to connect research outputs across different systems. Infrastructure teams must manage complex integrations. Funders and policymakers, meanwhile, are left without consistent or reliable insights.

The OSTrails Interoperability Reference Architecture has been designed to address these challenges. It provides a flexible, standards-based blueprint that enables research tools and services to communicate and work together in a connected, interoperable ecosystem. In doing so, it supports more efficient workflows, improves transparency, and strengthens the connections between systems across the research lifecycle.

Key Takeaways

• Connects research tools through a flexible, standards-based architecture

• Built on the PTA Framework for interoperability across the research lifecycle

• Integrates three core components: DMP-IF, SKG-IF, and FAIR-IF

• Supports researchers, support staff, developers, infrastructure teams, and funders

• Ready for real-world testing, with updates guided by pilot results and community feedback

A Blueprint for Connecting Research Tools 

The Reference Architecture is not a new tool. Instead, it is a shared framework that defines how existing platforms involved in research data management, such as Data Management Planning (DMP) platforms, Scholarly/ Scientific Knowledge Graphs (SKG), and FAIR assessment tools, can interact using common standards and APIs. Rather than enforcing a one-size-fits-all solution, the architecture supports adaptation to local contexts while maintaining interoperability across the wider Open Science ecosystem.

Why It Matters for the Research Community

The OSTrails Architecture focuses on solving practical challenges researchers and institutions face every day.

• Researchers can focus on their scientific work rather than administrative overhead. Tasks such as updating Data Management Plans, linking research outputs, or checking FAIRness can occur automatically in the background.

• Support staff and librarians are better equipped to provide integrated, end-to-end services that reduce duplication of effort and improve data stewardship across projects and departments.

• Developers and infrastructure teams benefit from a shared reference model for building and maintaining tools that use common standards and APIs, making integration more efficient and sustainable.

• Funders and policy makers gain access to more consistent, interconnected data on research outputs, supporting improved monitoring of FAIR compliance and Open Science adoption at scale.

What’s Inside the Architecture?

The architecture builds on the OSTrails Pathways, blueprints that map how services like DMP platforms, SKGs, and FAIR assessment tools interact across the research lifecycle, and provides a practical model for aligning research systems with Open Science principles, focused on usability, automation, and real-world adoption.

At its core, the architecture introduces three dedicated interoperability frameworks (IFs), DMP-IF, SKG-IF, and FAIR-IF. Each framework has been developed using established community standards, while ensuring they remain adaptable to the evolving needs of researchers, institutions, and service providers. 

• DMP-IF: Supports dynamic, machine-actionable (ma) DMPs by enabling real-time updates via shared APIs. For example, when a dataset is published, the system can automatically update the relevant DMP. It builds on the RDA DMP Common Standard, enriched with an application profile tailored to funder and community needs.

• SKG-IF: Facilitates consistent, structured metadata exchange through Scientific Knowledge Graphs. It extends the RDA SKG-IF Core Data Model with mechanisms to handle domain-specific entities like instruments and provenance. A dedicated API supports rich querying, semantic filtering, and relationship-based discovery of research outputs.

• FAIR-IF: Brings alignment and transparency to FAIR assessments by standardising how test results are described and shared. Built on DCAT and DQV standards, it introduces a common output model and API structure, enabling tools to compare results and integrate assessment data into other workflows.

OSTrails Reference Architecture and the Three Interoperability Frameworks: Orange: Elements covered by DMP-IF; Blue: Elements covered by SKG-IF; Green: Elements covered by FAIR-IF; Grey: Relevant elements not covered by OSTrails IFs (may follow existing or external standards).

How Does It Work in Practice?

Consider a researcher uploading a dataset to an open-access repository. With the OSTrails architecture in place:

Diagram depicting interaction between components used in the example.

• A FAIR assessment tool automatically evaluates the dataset’s metadata and returns actionable feedback (via FAIR-IF).

• The repository links the dataset to related publications or projects using a Scientific Knowledge Graph (via SKG-IF).

• The dataset metadata, such as its DOI, location, and licence, is automatically recorded in the project’s Data Management Plan (via DMP-IF).

Diagram depicting communication between components used in the example.

All of this occurs without additional manual steps, offering a streamlined, interconnected user experience.

What Stage Is It At?

The Reference Architecture is now established and ready for real-world application. It is currently being tested and refined through OSTrails pilot cases, hackathons, and collaborations with Research Data Alliance (RDA) and EOSC Working Groups. Community feedback and practical implementation will inform iterative updates, with new versions planned for release in early and late 2026.

For the research community, this represents a critical step toward infrastructure that is no longer fragmented, but connected by design, an ecosystem where systems speak the same language, and Open Science becomes a natural part of everyday research.

Read the full architecture deliverable!

Visit the official OSTrails documentation hub!

Watch OSTrails webinars on interoperability!

At IDCC 2025, OSTrails  presented its first-year results toward transforming research ecosystems into seamless, automated, and fully FAIR environments, highlighting thePlan-Track-Assess Framework, which links Data Management Plans (DMPs), Scientific Knowledge Graphs (SKGs), and FAIR assessment tools. Together, these components demonstrate how interconnected infrastructures can significantly enhance efficiency, transparency, and reusability throughout the research lifecycle.

 Key takeaways from the event 

• OSTrails addresses a clear gap in Open Science infrastructure by enabling machine-actionable and interoperable data management. 

• The Plan–Track–Assess Framework was well received for its practical integration of DMPs, knowledge graphs, and FAIR assessment tools. 

• Feedback highlighted the need to align with institutional workflows and CRIS systems without adding burden to researchers. 

• OSTrails’ enhanced DMP platforms, such as DAMAP, reflect the project’s progress through real-world pilots and integration efforts.

The conference served as a strategic platform for OSTrails to validate and disseminate its core architecture, tools, and methodologies. Presented by TUWIEN partner Andrés Tabima, the OSTrails poster highlighted the Plan–Track–Assess Framework and OSTrails’ integrated approach to machine-actionable DMPs, scientific knowledge graphs, and FAIR assessment tools—demonstrating how the project supports data stewardship aligned with FAIR principles and international standards such as EOSC and RDA. A second poster on DAMAP, one of the enhanced DMP platforms within the OSTrails framework, provided a concrete example of implementation in practice. Together, these contributions showcased how OSTrails’ vision is being realised through technical development, service integration, and collaboration with 25 pilot initiatives across 17 countries and 5 EOSC Science Clusters.

The poster attracted strong interest, especially from researchers and data stewards exploring scalable solutions for interoperability and automation. Discussions focused on linking DMPs with institutional workflows and CRIS systems. The feedback received is now informing the refinement of OSTrails’ technical framework, ensuring continued alignment with real-world needs and community practices.

Conclusions derived from attending the event

The IDCC 2025 experience reaffirmed OSTrails’ strategic positioning in the Open Science landscape. The validation of the Architecture and Interoperability Framework, along with strong interest in the Commons concept and pilot outcomes, underscored the need for ongoing coordination with EOSC and global data initiatives. Feedback gathered will inform refinements to the project’s tools and implementation pathways, reinforcing its role in shaping future-ready, FAIR-aligned research infrastructure.

Poster Materials

• Open Science Trails – Pathways to Improving FAIRness and Machine Actionability of Digital Artefacts 
  https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14974630

• Building a Bridge to the Future of Machine-actionable DMPs with DAMAP 
  https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14781625

Read the Inteview with the Social Sciences Thamatic Pilot to discover the latest updates on OSTrails pilot studies. Explore their progress in integrating open science principles and advancing research assessment. This month we had the pleasure of speaking with Alen Vodopijevec, Head of IT at CESSDA ERIC. 

- Alen Vodopijevec

"CESSDA is leveraging OSTrails to enhance interoperability and FAIRness of social science data within EOSC, aiming to create a more reliable, transparent, and impactful research environment."

-Can you briefly introduce your organisation? How do they contribute to EOSC?  

CESSDA (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives) - https://www.cessda.eu/ - is a distributed research infrastructure dedicated to supporting social science research by providing access to high-quality data across Europe. CESSDA brings together national data service providers from various countries to facilitate data sharing, accessibility, and reuse.

CESSDA aims to enhance scientific excellence in the social sciences, promote Open Science, and integrate into the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). By providing trusted repositories, tools, and training, CESSDA seeks to support researchers, ensure secure data access, and drive innovation in data discovery. Its vision includes expanding data interoperability, supporting interdisciplinary research, and contributing to solving societal challenges.

Building on the outcomes of previous EOSC-related projects, we are now actively involved in the development of the EOSC Federation. Our contributions include piloting the CESSDA EOSC Node (as part of EOSC Beyond project - https://www.eosc-beyond.eu/), participating in EOSC-A Task Forces, and actively contributing to the EOSC Federation Handbook.

-What are you most excited about in OSTrails? What are you looking forward to?   

We are very enthusiastic about OSTrails and its potential. It can make Scientific Knowledge Graphs (SKGs) and their connections more real and useful for all stakeholders (researchers, funders, policy makers, data curators etc). For CESSDA, this presents numerous valuable opportunities to address key important challenges in our field.

The capacity within an SKG to connect diverse research entities such as Data Management Plans (DMPs), datasets, and other outputs, is incredibly valuable. This feature will significantly improve our ability to check metadata quality and facilitate automatic assessment of FAIRness at a large scale. This is essential to ensure that research data in EOSC is of high quality and readily reusable.

OSTrails offers valuable possibilities for metadata enrichment and advanced analysis. The ability to easily add enriched metadata back to data sources promises a more efficient and transparent research system. Imagine the power of effortlessly uncovering connections between research projects, datasets, and publications that were previously hidden!

Ultimately, our vision is to see FAIR assessment results from OSTrails integrated into the EOSC Federation. We are particularly interested to see how FAIRness scores and good metadata quality can be recognised by an EOSC crediting system, as some initiatives are planning. This holds significant potential to encourage and reward open science practices throughout all research steps. This is strongly aligned with open science principles and could form a basis for prioritising services and funding within EOSC in the future.

-How is planning, tracking and assessing research being realised in your scientific domain?

Currently, in social science across Europe, planning, tracking, and assessment of research are not very consistent. DMPs are becoming more common, which is good. However, they are often not standardised, easy to compare, or really machine-actionable. Also, tracking research outputs and connecting them is not always done well.

This is further difficult by different data sharing cultures and lack of common open science standards. As a result, assessing FAIRness and impact of research outputs becomes complex and sometimes subjective. This situation makes it difficult to have good interoperability and to fully implement open science principles in our domain.

OSTrails provides important technical solutions to solve these problems. It provides tools and methods for better interoperability and use of standards. OSTrails helps to assess FAIRness better. Also, by making FAIRness assessment more transparent and possibly part of reward systems, OSTrails is important for encouraging good research practices and creating more reliable open science environment in social sciences and in EOSC. CESSDA believes OSTrails is key to move towards more consistent, transparent, and more impactful research.

-Can you provide some details on your pilot's main actors, services and priorities? How will your pilot adopt the results of OSTrails?

Our CESSDA pilot is a collaboration between CESSDA and its Service Providers from Finland (FSD), and the UK (UKDS). Main priority for this pilot is to improve interoperability and FAIRness of social science datasets in our infrastructure.

To do this, we are doing several things to integrate and adapt CESSDA services to OSTrails framework. First, we are working to make sure our vocabularies, CESSDA Vocabulary Service (CVS) and European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST), are compatible with DMP Interoperability Framework. This promotes standardised metadata.

Second, we prioritise metadata enrichment and validation. We will explore using information from other SKGs in our CESSDA SKG to make it more comprehensive and vice versa. Importantly, we are implementing validation tests to ensure metadata is complete and good quality in our SKG. We will use ELSST and CVS to have standardised values in dataset descriptions.

Finally, an important part is the integration of FAIR assessment. We will explore the possibility of integrating OSTrails' FAIR Assessment Tests in CESSDA Metadata Validator. This will let us give feedback to data providers about FAIRness of their datasets, to help them improve. By exposing metadata from CESSDA Data Catalogue (CDC) in SKG format, following SKG-IF (Scientific Knowledge Graph Interoperability Framework) standard, we want to test ways to enrich our catalogue metadata, learning from other projects.

Adoption of OSTrails results is built into pilot design. We are directly using OSTrails components and methods in our core CESSDA services and workflows. Pilot results will directly influence the development of our services, enhancing their interoperability, FAIR-enabling, and better contribution to EOSC.

-Ongoing activities and Next Steps? 

Currently, our focus is to adapt CESSDA services to work well with Interoperability Frameworks. This important work includes technical development, specifically making and integrating APIs for our SKG, CESSDA Vocabulary Service (CVS), and European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST). These APIs are needed for interoperable data exchange and metadata harmonisation across our services and with external systems.

At the same time, we are actively building strategic collaborations. We are especially focusing on partnerships that ensure DMP tools use standardised metadata elements and defined vocabularies effectively. This collaboration is important to promote consistent and machine-actionable DMPs in social sciences.

Our next steps involve implementing metadata validation tests that we have developed. This will allow us to check and improve metadata quality and completeness in our SKG. Also, we will start experimenting with using metadata from other relevant SKGs. This enrichment should improve knowledge base and analysis capabilities of our CESSDA SKG.

Finally, we are committed to further define and strengthen our collaborations with other OSTrails pilots and developers of DMP tools. These collaborations are important to ensure OSTrails and its outputs are widely adopted and have good impact in EOSC.

From 13 to 14 March 2025, the OSTrails consortium convened in Athens for its first General Assembly—a key milestone that marked OSTrails’ transition from early development to integrated implementation and broader adoption. With over 65 participants attending in person and many more joining online, the hybrid event brought the entire consortium together to consolidate technical progress, share lessons from early pilot deployments, and agree on shared priorities for the months ahead. Preceded by a day of hackathons and working sessions on pilots and training, the Assembly served as a milestone for both operational alignment and community-driven development.

Key Outcomes of the Assembly

• Completion of all key Year One outputs, including the first versions of the Reference Architecture, Plan–Track–Assess Framework, Interoperability Frameworks (DMP-IF, SKG-IF, FAIR-IF), Commons, FAIRness Reference Model, DMP Evaluation Rubric.

• key technical components revision based on pilot and hackathon input.

• Timelines for the DMP Evaluation Service and HE Pilot.

• Alignment on shared templates and benchmarks for pilot implementation.

• Launch of a capacity-building programme with Mentorship and Webinars.

• Commitment to EOSC alignment and community-driven development.

A Look Back: What We Discussed 

Day 1 focused on the project’s core technical components, including updates on Interoperability Frameworks, the Reference Architecture, and the Plan–Track–Assess model. Discussions covered practical progress on maDMP API, SKG extensions, and FAIR test result structures. Day 2 shifted to coordination and adoption, highlighting the Horizon Europe pilot, the upcoming DMP Evaluation Service, and engagement with EOSC Nodes. Across both days, partners were highly engaged—sharing lessons from pilots, asking sharp questions, and clearly driving the project forward together.

Key Achievements from Year One 

During the Assembly, presentations from the technical leads highlighted a major milestone for the project: the release of the first version of the OSTrails Toolkit. The Toolkit now provides a structured foundation for the project’s vision of integrated, interoperable research data workflows. This includes the Plan–Track–Assess Framework (D1.1), which maps how digital objects can be managed, evaluated, and improved across their lifecycle, and the Reference Architecture (D1.4, outlining how DMPs, SKGs, and FAIR tools connect in automated, vendor-neutral ways. At the core are the three Interoperability Frameworks—DMP-IF, SKG-IF, and FAIR-IF (D1.4)—each designed to promote alignment and consistency across platforms. Additional components include the OSTrails Commons (D2.5), a growing set of open and reusable resources; the FAIRness Reference Model (D1.2), which offers guidance for FAIR adoption across research stages; and the DMP Evaluation Rubric (D3.1), which defines how the quality of DMPs can be assessed in a structured and transparent way.

Implementing Interoperability 

Equipped with the first version of the OSTrails Toolkit, the community came together in three hackathons held just before the Assembly—targeting FAIR assessment workflows, maDMPs, and SKGs—to build on this progress and test key components in practice. The energy during the hackathons, as well as in the plenary discussions, reflected a shared excitement, particularly around the potential of DMPs as actionable tools and the growing need for FAIR benchmarks to be adopted by infrastructures like OpenAIRE and research institutes. 

• The DMP Hackathon gathered international developers—including several from outside Europe—to advance the maintenance of the RDA Common Standard and initiate a common maDMP API.

• The FAIR hackathon convened developers from various FAIR related platforms and tools, focused on aligning assessment services and harmonising benchmark formats and APIs.

• The SKG Hackathon, pushed forward SKG interoperability through OpenAPI enhancements and metadata modeling.

These sessions helped surface integration challenges, align technical directions, and lay the groundwork for upcoming tool releases and framework updates.

Pilot Progress

Pilot use cases presented during the Assembly showed how OSTrails tools are being tested and embedded in real contexts. Pilots from Finland, Poland, the Netherlands, CESSDA, ESRF, and ENVRI demonstrated applications such as enriching DMPs with live metadata, conducting FAIR assessments in disciplinary workflows, and aligning institutional infrastructures with project frameworks. Feedback from these pilots is now feeding directly into tool refinement and API evolution.

Building Community Capacity

The importance of training and outreach was also central to the discussions. To support both foundational understanding and hands-on implementation of OSTrails technologies, the project has launched the Training Corner. This serves as a centralised, continuously evolving platform that hosts a growing collection of high-quality learning materials (learning resources, online Courses, mentorship programs, bootcamps), covering project’s core components such as DMPs, SKGs, and FAIR assessment tools and services.

What’s Next

Technical Milestones

To advance core components, the next round of OSTrails hackathons—scheduled for May/June 2025— will focus on refining the maDMP API, extending SKG-IF with new entities (e.g., Instruments, RAiD), and enhancing FAIR-IF with better benchmark and metadata support. Outputs from these hackathons, combined with early pilot feedback, will inform the revision of the Reference Architecture and all three Interoperability Frameworks by the end of Year 2, ensuring they are scalable, coherent, and responsive to real-world needs.

In parallel, OSTrails will release a prototype of the DMP Evaluation Service by Month 20. This semi-automated tool will assess DMPs across multiple dimensions—completeness, feasibility, quality, and policy compliance.

From Pilots to Policy

As pilots consolidate use cases, they will directly contribute to refining APIs, evaluation metrics, and implementation guidance. A shared DMP template, based on the Horizon Europe model, will be co-developed to support platforms, funders, and research teams across diverse national and disciplinary contexts. This will help bridge technical outputs with funder expectations and ensure greater transferability and policy alignment.

From the Community to the Community

To scale adoption and engagement, OSTrails will launch several capacity-building initiatives:

• An online course on (ma)DMPs will be piloted at the end of 2025, with full release in early 2026.

• The OSTrails Mentorship Programme will run from June 2025 to May 2026, offering hands-on support to research support staff, funders, and infrastructure managers.

• An OSTrails webinar series will begin in April 2025, showcasing project outputs and pilot experiences:

• 15 April: Introducing OSTrails: Your Companion to Streamline Planning, Tracking, and Assessing Research Practices.

• 28–30 April: Dedicated sessions on the Interoperability Frameworks (FAIR-IF, DMP-IF, SKG-IF).

Throughout the year, OSTrails will be featured at major events including LIBER, OSFAIR, and its first Bootcamp (late 2025), aimed at training institutional adopters.

Conclusions

The 2025 General Assembly marked OSTrails’ shift from building infrastructure to enabling widespread adoption. Backed by strong technical foundations and growing adoption, OSTrails enters Year Two with momentum and a clear role in shaping research data practices across Europe.