EOSC-SIESTA is an EU-funded project bringing together 13 international partners to build a trusted, cloud-based framework for analyzing, sharing, and managing sensitive data within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the consortium brings together research organizations and industry partners to develop robust solutions for secure data analytics.
Much of today’s most valuable research data—including patient health records, industry datasets, and demographic statistics—carries strict privacy constraints and cannot simply be moved or copied. Historically, working with such data required visiting physical “data safe havens”: isolated, air-gapped workstations on site. Today’s science, however, relies on distributed collaboration across institutions and borders.
To address this, EOSC-SIESTA integrates secure enclaves that keep datasets safely hosted in place while enabling remote access. As part of this technological ecosystem, consortium partner Cendio contributes its ThinLinc remote desktop technology. By executing workloads directly on the secure host and transmitting only the graphical interface to the user, researchers can run demanding tools like RStudio or MATLAB with the responsiveness of a local workstation—ensuring sensitive data never leaves the enclave.