The scope of the initiative should place importance on mobilising raw viral sequences and identifying and monitoring the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Additionally, it should further expand to other relevant infectious diseases, incorporate epidemiological, clinical (including Real World Data), and socio-economic data, spanning from molecular biology to other disciplines, including Social Sciences and Humanities. Briefly, future pandemics should be addressed to ensure the preparedness of infrastructure building on already existing frameworks for broader use such as the EOSC in order to enable rapid public health action to mitigate health and societal impact.

Particular attention should be given to the harmonisation and management of meta-data and sample- identifiers to ensure interoperability of national and regional efforts into the EOSC and the long-term cataloguing of data resources within the EOSC.

Proposals should facilitate and accelerate the access to, and the linking of data and metadata on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 through relevant initiatives, with the emphasis on identifying and tracking of new SARS-CoV-2 variants and creating appropriate links with serology and other host data. Additionally, importance should be given to the need of federating data between national centres to effectively manage data protection. Furthermore, the proposals should demonstrate the value of sharing FAIR research data, help consolidating data-sharing and data management practices across the Member States, Associated Countries and beyond, and provide feedback to the EOSC Partnership for the future evolution of EOSC.