The objective of this paper is to propose the establishment of the European Open Science Cloud that will enable digital science by introducing IT as a Service to the public research sector in Europe. The rationale calls for a hybrid model that brings together public research organisations and e‐Infrastructures with commercial suppliers to build a common platform offering a range of services to Europe’s research communities. The exploitation platform will make use of, and cooperate with, existing European e‐infrastructures by jointly offering integrated services to the end‐user. This hybrid public‐commercial cloud model represents a significant change from the status‐quo and will bring benefits for the stakeholders: end‐users, research organisations, service providers (public and commercial) and funding agencies. A time‐line for a pilot and its subsequent expansion together with a funding model engaging all stakeholder groups is described.