FOSSR-Fostering Open Science in Social Science Research: Building Italy's Innovative Open Cloud Infrastructure

. FOSSR project is dedicated to creating an Italian Open Science Cloud, inspired by the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). A central strategy of FOSSR revolves around leveraging Research Infrastructures (RIs) in the social sciences to ensure the availability of data adhering to the FAIR principles. FOSSR aligns with the broader mission of advancing Open Science in Italy, aiming to provide a framework of tools and services to support the social science academic community. This includes the integration of the Italian nodes of three existing RIs: CESSDA-ERIC, SHARE-ERIC, and RISIS, coordinated by the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). The FOSSR project strategically integrates cloud computing infrastructure and a Network of Data Centers, primarily situated in southern Italy which strengthens data processing capabilities. This network will enhance local computing capabilities and support the advanced data analytics needs of social science researchers. The federated platform offers various interfaces, and a Virtual Research Environment (VRE), promoting open, collaborative, and streamlined data access.