Scope of the call

The aim of the VESPA activity in the Europlanet2024-RI programme is to make Planetary Science and Solar System data accessible and searchable through an interoperable system following the principles of Open Science. More than 50 databases were published in the frame of the Europlanet-2020 programme, and as many should be made available on-line during the 4-year Europlanet2024-RI programme. The system relies on standards from the Astronomical Virtual Observatory, adapted to Solar System studies - to get a better idea, just take a look at the VESPA data query service.

One way to promote new databases is through an annual call to the science community. In the 2023 VESPA open call, up to 5 projects will be selected to enlarge the data content accessible via the VESPA interface. A workshop will be organized with the selected participants to help them design and set up their project, and to open it to the user community. This workshop will be held face-2-face at the Space Research Institute in Graz, Austria, from May 30 to June 02, 2023, with follow-up telecons in June/July 2023 to support the finalization of the selected services.

Examples:

- Typical case: You have generated a dataset for a publication, you want to share it using an advanced query system fulfilling the requirements of the Open Science Policy

- Secondary case: You're working with a lot of data subsets from one or several archives, and you want to enhance the access with advanced query capabilities, and possibly make them ready for Machine Learning techniques (e.g., ground based telescopic support for Rosetta; several disconnected spectral databases of minerals, etc)

- Any other situation is acceptable (e.g., historical datasets, teaching and training tools…), as long as the interest to the Europlanet community is demonstrated.

Time line

Call opens: February 27, 2023

Call closes: March 31, 2023 April 14, 2023, extended

Selection of teams by April 14, 2023

Telecons with selected teams from April 25, 2023

Workshop:

Face-2-face Workshop at Graz, Austria from May 30 to June 02, 2023

Post-workshop telecons, June/July 2023

Finalization review performed with the selected proposers, September/October 2023

Service delivery date: the aim is to have the new services published by November 2023

FAQ

• Who is eligible?
  

Any research team in Planetary Science or neighbouring fields. Primarily support will be given to EU teams but collaboration with teams external to the EU will be considered by the VESPA management team. Europlanet and VESPA beneficiaries are welcome to this on-line format.


• What do I gain?
  

Visibility for your published work/observations.


Compliance with FAIR Data guidelines for Data Availability Statement from peer-reviewed journals.


Fulfilment of Open Science policy requirements with internal forces only (data are made available from your institute).


A prompt answer to daily mails asking for your data!


If you already have a database, adopting to the VESPA framework will provide high level search functions on its contents, on-line visu / analysis capacities, and cross-correlation with other datasets in neighbouring fields, with minimum efforts. Your data will be searchable from the VESPA interface and other community tools.


• What is the outcome?
  

At the end of the process, you will have a TAP server installed in your institute, one data service connected to the Planetary Science Virtual Observatory, and the know-how to implement additional services and to share more data. A single server can accommodate many services in Planetary Science, Heliophysics, and Astronomy. Knowledge of the EPN-TAP metadata system may also help handle datasets not openly distributed, e. g., related to an experimental archive, or during data analysis phase.
This may be a first step towards migrating your data on the cloud and preparing them for mass processing (Machine Learning techniques, etc)

• Which data?
  

Derived / highly processed data are preferred, because their content can be of interest to other communities. Observational, simulated, or experimental data are eligible.


• What type of data access / data status?
  

Data will be publicly open/accessible - you are responsible for checking the legal status of the data you wish to provide, and must accept to share them publicly.


• Which support?
  

VESPA provides hands-on support to design and install a data service through a face-2-face workshop, and follow-telecons. A finalization review will be performed with the proposers.


• What do VESPA pay for?
  

For two team members of each selected service, VESPA will reimburse local and international travel costs, as well as accomodation costs for the entire workshop duration plus a maximum of one night prior and after the workshop. Each team member will further receive a fixed per diem to cover local expenses.


• What skills does this require?
  

You need a science expert of the field and a software engineer - at least someone not reluctant to editing code templates and installing software. The installation process has been optimized to remain as light as possible.


• Where will the data be located?
  

Data services are installed in the proposing institutes, which have to set up and maintain a server and a database. Service definition files will be backed up on VESPA gitlab, but you are responsible for data storage - we can help identify external solutions, such as EU-funded data repositories available for this purpose (e. g., Zenodo, B2share).


• How many proposals are selected?
  

The baseline is to select 4 to 5 proposals per call.


• Who is evaluating?
  

Europlanet-2024 VESPA VA-task3 members (IRAP/Toulouse, Jacobs Univ/Bremen, CBK-PAN/Warsaw, IWF/Graz, Observatoire de Paris)


• Are non-European teams also eligible?
  

Absolutely.


• When will the next call take place?
  

The next call is planned for autumn 2023.


• What does VESPA mean by the way?
  

VESPA stands for Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access.

Evaluation criteria

• Scientific merit:
• Existing publications
• Data quality (used for publication? + data quality assessment plan)
• Size of the community
• Added value of proposed database/service, compared to existing databases/archives
• Status of the data is of course a major issue (reserved services sharing proprietary data are currently studied only internally to VESPA)
• Science domain balance in VESPA. Pre-selection may occur if the subject matter is not mature enough in VESPA - in which case VESPA will be happy to study the problem together with the proposing team.
• Readiness level of data products and database:
• Data readily available at the time of proposal/workshop
• Finalized, directly usable data products are preferred (expect difficulties with bunches of irregular Xcel files…)
• Standard format and available metadata (or plan to derive them from the data products/documentation)
• Team capabilities:
• Scientific assessment of data quality, possible update of dataset, recalibration, extension...
• personnel available for setting up a service (2-3 telecons + workshop): at least 1 scientist + 1 engineer (FTE involved depend on a lot of factors)
• Sustainability (at least for 5 years), and estimated ability to maintain the service (e.g.: is there any data distribution system already installed?)
• Additional databases that could be implemented in the future by the team
• Consensus/agreement in the proposing institute is important, in particular to ensure that local technical support will be available to maintain the service

Example proposal

Proposals must address the following (in addition to the above criteria) - don't make it formal, but please provide reasonable details to allow the VESPA team to assess the level of maturity. These are mandatory fields in the submission form:

• Team info:
• Name / Address / Lab / Country
• Science Contact / technical contact
• Service info:
• Title of database
• Description of database: science theme / purpose, context, potential audience, related publications. Origin/status of data.
• One or several use cases to explain a typical use for research and/or education
• Service details:
• Processing level? (raw/calibrated, derived/processed)
• Readiness level of dataset / descriptions
• Format of products
• Number of products, size of database
• Scope of database: living/increasing, completed, limited in time coverage?
• Do you own data rights (if not, what is their status)? Do you (plan to) host the data?
• Data collection status: bunch of files + doc vs existing database (and what type: SQL, XML...)
• Description of local technical maintenance / sustainability plan

Propose your project!

Please propose your project via the Submission Form. In addition to the mandatory fields of the form, a short PDF document describing the project in more detail can be helpful (1 to 4 pages):

*** VESPA AO Submission Form, 2023 ***

Further information

VESPA standards

Standards used in VESPA