1 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT Eighth Session h: Century of Information Research Strategy Review of CIR Strategy (see handout) Reactions :- –Chris Borgman, Dan Atkins, Yorick Wilks, Noshir Contractor, … –Paul Bonnington: written contribution (see handout) –Debate -> Reach consensus – tune/improve CIR Strategy Discuss how CIR Strategy should be taken forward –Propose set of actions

2 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT Malcolm Atkinson Director e-Science Institute UK e-Science Envoy & Paul Jeffreys Director of IT University of Oxford Century-of-Information Research Strategy e-Research ‘08 13th September 2008

3 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT The Authors: CIR Working Group Prof Malcolm Atkinson (chair) – Director, e-Science Institute, e-Science Envoy, University of Edinburgh Dr Dave Berry - Deputy Director, National e-Science Centre Prof David Britton – University of Glasgow (GridPP) Prof Peter Coveney – University College London & CCP Strategy chair Prof David De Roure – University of Southampton & OMII-UK chair Dr Ned Garnett – NERC Dr Neil Geddes – STFC e-Science Centre & NGS director Prof Robert Gurney – Reading e-Science Centre & NERC Prof David Ingram – Director CHIME at University College London Prof Keith Haines – Reading e-Science Centre & NERC Dr Lorna Hughes – Director, Arts & Humanities e-Science Support Centre, King’s College London Dr Liz Lyon – Director UKOLN, University of Bath Prof Paul Jeffreys – IT Director, University of Oxford Mr Ian Osborne – INTELLECT Prof Ron Perrott – Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast Regional e-Science Centre & HEC Technology Panel Prof Rob Procter – National Centre for e-Social Science & ESRC, University of Manchester Mr Chris Rusbridge – Director, Digital Curation Centre, University of Edinburgh Prof Anne Trefethen – Oxford e-Research Centre Prof Paul Watson - Director, North-East Regional e-Science Centre

4 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT NERC illustrated e-Science success

5 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT Background UK e-Science programme from : –£.25b invested Value-proposition: –Better, faster, different research, e-Infrastructure, vibrant community, … AHM 2008: c. 600 attendees, momentum sustained Strategy Working Group formed –More than a year’s work –Develop next steps for UK –‘e-Science’ barely mentioned by name - discuss….

6 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT Broad Context - C. of I. Gordon Brown University of Westminster, 25 October 2007 –“This is the Century of Information” All you have heard at e-Research ’08… –NSF: CyberInfrastructure programme and OCI –Australian National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy –‘Big Data’ (Steve Emmott) Delivery plans for UK Research Councils from –Demand advances in exploitation of complex data UK’s ‘Digital Economy’ programme –“e-Research is case study of Digital Economy”

7 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT Changing Research World Reviewed thoroughly at e-Research ‘08… Growing proportion: collaborative effort International challenges, facilities & collaboration / competition Digital-systems revolution –Automation, sensors, instruments, computers, data & networks –Pervasive use of digital devices and data –Data deluge Shared remote experimental facilities –Real-time control and analysis In all professions, information systems, data analysis and computational modelling is becoming prevalent

8 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT CIR Strategy: Top Level Metrics (page 16) NB CIR Strategy snapshot, still evolving, today is part of the process! “The success of the CIR Strategy will be vitally dependant on keeping three strands of progress evolving together so that they are mutually supportive: 1.Innovation in and provision for research methods and the technology that supports those methods; 2.Translation into transformative, effective and fluent use — in research, education, business, government and social actions — through knowledge transfer, people movement and collaborative exploitation channels; and 3.Capability development through education and training delivering more participants in research and innovation, who are better prepared to engage in the research or to exploit the results.”

9 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT CIR Strategy: Goals (page 2) 1.“Support the continuous innovation of Digital-information research methods, 2.Provide easily used, pervasive and sustained e-Infrastructure for all research, 3.Enlarge the productive research community which exploits the new methods efficiently, 4.Generate capacity, propagate knowledge and develop skills via new curricula.” See Australian critique (hand out) – all being addressed (Jane) Unpacked further on page 16

10 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT CIR Strategy: Researchers (page 11) “The CIR Strategy is directed at both supporting advanced research and providing translation mechanisms to ensure the resulting benefits are delivered to a much wider research community and society as a whole. It has to enable significant advances in world-leading research and support the broader communities that support these advances and exploit breakthroughs.”

11 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT CIR Strategy : Educational/Skills (page 10, 12) Equip users with ‘digital-systems judgement’ –“an understanding of how large and long-lived digital systems, such as shared data services and distributed computational modelling services work. It should include practical appreciation of security, ethical and other socio-economic issues and the strengths and weaknesses of statistical, logical, process, stochastic and numerical models. It should include an understanding of the strategies for data organisation, curation, interpretation and analysis.”

12 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT CIR Strategy: e-Infrastructure (page 13) Ease of use: low barrier to entry Sustainability: for selected services Capacity: balanced across the infrastructure Evolution: of the services, facilities, tools and knowledge of the support teams Efficiency, cost-effectiveness and green computing: must be demonstrated Support for Extreme e-Science: must empower heroes and heroines

13 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT CIR Strategy: Deliverables (page 6) Community support for advanced work dealing with more complex data and combining higher precision models, with increased collaboration Research dependant on sustained, easily used and well-curated digital data resources Constraints that protect emerging results, privacy and ethical standards One million users in the UK, using between them 10 petaflops of computing …

14 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT CIR Strategy: Goals (page 16) NB Beginning to address: ‘How’ 1.“Work with researchers to develop requirements and the business case for meeting those requirements — a quinquennial planning cycle is needed. 2.Work with providers, technologists, Research Councils (and other research funders) and HEFCs to balance cost-effective provision of e ‑ Infrastructure with the priority of enabling the best possible research. 3.Work with educators and education policy makers to encourage the development of the knowledge and skills to exploit new information-intensive research methods and develop the ability to invent new methods and the digital and computational systems that support them. 4.Ensure that an easily used, pervasive, and sustainable national e-Infrastructure is provided for all researchers, that includes the required data, computational,..” But how: avoid ‘command and control’ and move to user-led changes?

15 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT Where does the CIR Strategy go from here? This is the point where the CIR W.G. asks for your help… 1.Is the vision correct, well expressed, compelling? Responses from respondents What are the views of the conference? -> some refinement to Strategy, user-driven, bottom-up … 2.Is Evaluation Possible? Value Proposition to measure against? 3.When we reach consensus How should the vision be implemented? What are the steps? To whom?

16 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF IT Thank you! The CIR Strategy wiki – arch_Strategy –Clue: Navigate from Via “Documents for consultation”