From Athens to Impact: AV Reflections on the 1st RAISE Suite Plenary Meeting

AV participated in the 1st RAISE Suite Plenary Meeting, held on June 8th and 9th in Athens it was much more than a project coordination milestone. For us at Anthology Ventures, it was an important moment to see how the different parts of the RAISE Suite vision are coming together: technical development, pilot validation, user needs, sustainability, exploitation, and ecosystem engagement.

Hosted by OpenAIRE at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the plenary brought together the consortium for two days of focused discussions, workshops, demonstrations, and strategic alignment. As a partner in the project, AV was pleased to contribute to this collective effort and to engage with partners working across Open Science, research infrastructures, data management, software development, pilots, and EOSC integration.

One of the most important takeaways from the meeting was the central role of the machine-actionable Data Management Plan, the ma-DMP, in the RAISE Suite approach. Discussions around user flow, technical requirements, policy representation, and the use of ODRL highlighted how the ma-DMP can become more than a static document. It can act as a living reference point across the research data lifecycle, supporting automation, interoperability, and FAIR-by-design practices from data collection to exploitation.
From AV’s perspective, this is where the project’s innovation potential becomes especially relevant. Research data management tools only create value when they are adopted, understood, and integrated into real research workflows. The Athens discussions showed that RAISE Suite is moving in that direction by connecting technical architecture with practical user needs and real-life cases.

The pilot sessions were also particularly valuable. They demonstrated how RAISE Suite will be tested across different research domains and how feedback from real environments will guide the project’s development. This connection between technology and validation is essential for building solutions that are not only technically strong, but also relevant, usable, and sustainable.

As AV, we leave the 1st Plenary Meeting with a stronger sense of alignment and commitment. The next steps will be crucial: advancing technical releases, supporting pilot activities, engaging stakeholders, and contributing to the wider European Open Science Cloud ecosystem.
RAISE Suite is building an infrastructure that aims to make research data easier to manage, share, process, reuse, and exploit according to FAIR principles. We are proud to be part of this journey and look forward to supporting the project’s path from research infrastructure development to real-world impact.