I have been often asked by people outside of my domain what is my job.
As many jobs in the IT domain, it is a little bit difficult to explain what we do: it is quite technical and abstract. It has to do with structures that do not exist in reality. It has to do with planning, with considering sustainability of the envisaged activities. We work with bits, code, data structures, metadata, with management of huge IT objects and initiatives.
Even most importantly, as EPOS is something completely new, it has much to do with setting up architectures and methodologies which do not exist yet. Most of the effort is dedicated to making things real on the basis of what discussed and decided in a collaborative way, rather than carrying out activities that are well established and tested since years.
So, not sure whether I can now answer straight to the burning question “Daniele, what’s your job”.
However, everybody can now have a comprehensive overview of what EPOS is and what this wonderful enterprise, which has become a legal entity (an ERIC), is about with the
“Special Issue: EPOS a Research Infrastructure in solid Earth: open science and innovation” from the Annals of Geophysics journal.
In particular, I would like to highlight four publications that are vital for understanding what EPOS is (and what is my job, hopefully 🙂 )