AQUARIUS

Info

AQUARIUS is a four‑year Horizon Europe project bringing together 45 partners to integrate and harmonize marine and freshwater research infrastructures across Europe. It provides access to 57 advanced services, including vessels, drones, satellites, sensors, and data systems, enabling cutting‑edge environmental research.
The project directly supports major EU priorities: the Mission to Restore our Ocean and Waters, the European Green Deal, and the development of the Digital Twin of the Ocean.
Covering Europe’s major seas and river basins, AQUARIUS focuses on restoring biodiversity, eliminating pollution, and building a sustainable, carbon‑neutral blue economy. Researchers can access its infrastructures through open funding calls, supported by training activities and open‑data principles that foster collaboration and accelerate solutions for healthier aquatic ecosystems worldwide.

The Need

Large, multi‑partner research infrastructures like AQUARIUS face a critical challenge: efficiently managing Transnational Access (TA) and Remote Access (RA) across highly diverse assets. The access process requires a robust, compliant, centralized digital system capable of handling the full lifecycle of access calls, from application submission and expert evaluation to complex scheduling and EU‑compliant reporting. Existing systems were typically fragmented and ad‑hoc, lacking essential features such as:

• a consolidated RI management interface
• advanced, customizable reporting modules
• standardized scheduling across heterogeneous infrastructures
• secure, centralized authentication and role management

Given AQUARIUS’s scale, the consortium urgently needed a single, integrated platform to ensure operational coherence, compliance, and efficiency in managing TA/RA activities.

The Solution

The Transnational Access Platform (TAP) is the advanced digital solution developed to meet these challenges. Evolving from the INTERACCESS platform, TAP delivers a customizable yet standardized all‑in‑one system for managing the entire TA/RA workflow.

Key TAP capabilities include:

• Call Management: Full lifecycle support from call opening to grant issuance and final reporting.
• Access Booking System: A harmonized scheduling engine capable of comparing and standardizing diverse booking methods across all AQUARIUS infrastructures.
• Document Sharing System: A secure library for guidelines, templates, and project documents with configurable confidentiality levels.
• EU‑Compliant Reporting: Automated, precise, and customizable reporting aligned with European Commission requirements.
• Secure Authentication: Centralized identity and permission management via Keycloak.

State of the Art

TAP has already supported two full TA/RA calls within AQUARIUS and is fully prepared to manage the next two incoming ones. TAP has demonstrated the reliability, flexibility, and operational coherence needed to manage complex access workflows. Its selection as the official TA management system for AQUARIUS confirms its capacity to streamline processes, integrate best practices, and support large‑scale, multidisciplinary research infrastructures.

Coordinator: Marine Institute Foras na Mara

Partners: Corsortium page

Duration: 01 March 2024 – 29 February 2028 (4 years)

Funding: Net EU contribution € 2 200 616,25 – Total cost € 2 200 616,25

GA: 101130915