ARC Research Network in Enterprise Information Infrastructure

AGM July 2005

Maria E Orlowska

Convenor, ARC Research Network EIIUniversity of Queensland

www.eii.edu.au

Outline

EII Overview EII Mission EII Programs

Followed by Prof X Zhou report on EII Activities in 2004/05 EII Funding Strategies Structure for the rest of AGM Discussion

ARC Research Networks

A $42M new initiative from ARC “to bring leading researchers together to share their knowledge”– Different from CRCs, NICTA…

24 networks funded for 5 years– EII is the only IT+IS research network funded– $1.6M from ARC, plus $1.6M non-ARC cash

contributions from participating institutions

EII Participants

Hosted at UQ– Prof Maria E Orlowska, Network Convenor– Prof Xiaofang Zhou, Research Director

49 (46) other participants from 20 (22) institutions

– Monash, Sydney; UNSW; ANU, ECU; Macquarie, Wollongong, Melbourne, VUT, Griffith, QUT, UTS, UniSA; Tasmania, Newcastle, Swinburne

– NICTA, CSIRO, DSTC– Microsoft, SAP

Some Figures on our capabilities

46 core participants – Plus 80+ registered associate members

$36M research funding for 2000-2006– Including $7M industry funding

Over the last 5 years– 37 books, 143 book chapters, 708 journal papers,

1628 conference papers 154 current PhD students

EII Management

Advisory Board– Keith Jeffery, Director, IT, CCLRC, UK.– Arun Sharma, DVC-R, QUT.– James Shaw, GM, ICT Strategy and Policy Development, DCITA– Harry Shum, Managing Director, MSRA. – Douglas Vogel, Chair of IS, City U of HK.

Steering Committee for 2004/05– Maria Orlowska, Xiaofang Zhou, David Abramson, Janice Burn,

Peter Eades, Shirley Gregor, Rao Kotagiri, Igor Hawryszkiewycz, Vijay Varadharajan, and Albert Zomaya

EII Mission

“To provide a forum for intellectual exchange by diverse yet complementary research groups, to address the fundamental research problems faced by scientific & business communities when dealing with deployment of information technology to globally distributed and data intensive environments”

Look for new opportunities, Improve impact of our research work, Maintain/improve quality of research output,

EII Mission

Key EII Research Themes

Ability to interoperate across existing heterogenous platforms & applications

Efficient processing of very large data sets, often with unstructured data types

Technology adoption & impact

EII Scope

Application Centric

Enterprise Centric

Service Centric

Data, Knowledge and Process

Security

Computing Platforms

Computing Infrastructure

Computer Networks

Telecommunication Networks

EII technical

scope

EII Application Drivers – e-science, e-gov, e-business,…

Technology Evolution

Theme 1 - Interoperability

Theme 2 – Performance for large and complex data sets

SecurityTrust

Privacy

DataManagement

Impact And

Adoption

Knowledgeand Process

Theme 3 – Applicatio

n Driver

s

EII Programs

Computing Platforms

How to Make EII Work

A great challenge!

In addition to meetings, workshops, conferences– Problem-driven research, with focused vertical application

domains– Synergy task forces (scopes, benchmarks, test beds)

Measurable objectives– High quality research output– Greater impact of research results– Joint projects, attracting new funding– Eventually, creation of an Australia Centre of Excellence

Report from Research Director

EII Activities in 2004/05 EII Funding Strategies Structure for the rest of AGM Discussion

Outline

EII Activities: – Goals– Categories

EII Funding Strategies 2004/05 Report 2006 Planning

EII Activities

Goal– Opportunities, quality and impact, through networking

Activities categories– Networking

An EII web portal (internal and external), news letters, mailing lists AGM, steering/advisory committee meetings Research exchanges Conferences and workshops

– Opportunities For our community, and for ECRs Task forces, industry links, multidisciplinary links Facilitating real collaboration, and working towards a 3-5 years vision

– Impact International collaborations, industry links, user group links More needs to be done…

– Quality Spring schools, internships, research exchanges, EII seminars Visibility for outstanding achievements Development of quality indicators

Activity levels– EII (core and expanded), city, program, and application domain

More about EII Activities

In addition to meetings, workshops, conferences– Problem-driven research, with focused vertical application

domains– Synergy task forces (scopes, benchmarks, test beds)

Measurable objectives– High quality research output– Greater impact of research results– Joint projects, attracting new funding– Eventually, creation of an Australia Centre of Excellence

EII Funding Strategies

EII is not a mini-funding scheme EII is a seed grant to help all of us to get to the future

we want to be– Identify major opportunities– Lobby the decision makers– Establish track record, critical mass and collaboration

ARC vs Institutional funding– EII activities, and institutional activities

Activities 2004/05

25 August: funding announced Nov: Kath Williamson appointed Nov: 1st steering committee meeting Nov: contract negotiation started Dec, May and August: links with MSRA Jan: funding received March: news letters April: taskforce proposals

– 10 proposals– 3 short-listed, funding to start after this AGM

April and July: e-water workshop Others

– EII website, EII seminars (Brisbane and Sydney), brining major international conferences

10-15 October: EII Spring School (for PhD students and others) Others:

– MSRA internships; finalizing contracts; a new Web portal; EII snapshot update; preparing for annual report.

E-Water Workshop

ARC and NSFC– First meeting: 1 April 2005, near Shanghai– First workshop: 4-5 July 2005, Gold Coast

Theme:– ICT and Whole-of-Water-Cycle approach to water resources management

Attendees:– Eva Abal, Ian Atkinson, Rao Kotagiri, Xuemin Lin, Stuart Minchin, Maria Orlowska, Andy Steven, Ah

Chung Tsoi, Yanchun Zhang, Xiaofang Zhou– Qingcheng He, Minglu Li, Guangcai Wang, Lei Wang, Dongguang Wen, Jichun Wu, Feng Xu,

Qingping Zhu, Xiaofeng Zhou Outcome

– An established network– A project proposal (3 years, 1,5M)

Next Step– NSFC visit to ARC on 16 August– Ministerial level interests– Several funding opportunities – Second workshop: 16-18 Jan 2006, Harbin

Activities 2006

Annual activities– Feb: Steering committee meeting– July: AGM (and Steering committee meeting, Advisory

board meeting) - Melbourne– October: Springer school - Sydney

Major initiatives– Call for proposals in April (taskforces?)

Other activities– A new vertical workshop – …

Thank you

http://www.eii.edu.au

Mr James Shaw

[EII Advisory Board member]

General Manager, StrategyCommonwealth Government Department of Communications, Information Technology & the Arts, DCITA

The department provides policy and strategic advice to the Government on drivers of the global information economy, facilitates legislation, develops policy in relation to the online environment and administers a number of programs to help promote take-up of ICT technology.

Dr Anthony Maeder

Research Director

e-Health Research CentreCSIRO ICT Centre

Anthony holds a PhD in Software Engineering from Monash University, and his current research specialisations are digital image processing and human vision, including medical imaging applications. He holds a concurrent appointment as an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Queensland.

Dr Maeder is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia, and a Member of IEEE, ACM and ACS. He was the founding President of the Australian Pattern Recognition Society in 1991 and serves on the SPIE International Technical Committee for Medical Imaging.

Prof Mark Ragan

Director

ARC Centre for BioinformaticsInstitute for Molecular Bioscience, UQ

Prof. Mark Ragan is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience in the University of Queensland. His interests are in the areas of automated inference of vertical and lateral gene transmission in microbial genomes, Novel algorithmic methods in comparative genomics and relational database structures for genomic data.

National Benefits

Added momentum to Australia’s IT research community, by cross fertilisation among researchers, major industry players and leading-edge user groups

Establishment of a stimulating, competitive and scientifically rich research environment

Improved quality and returns from currently funded research activities in Australia

Increased international recognition