NSF International: Cyber-Enabled Collaborations with Low-Resource Science Communities

Presented to the Internet2 Workshop:

Extending the Reach of Advanced Networking

April 22, 2004

Lori A. PerineSpecial Advisor

International Cyberinfrastructure

Office of International Science and Engineering

Today’s Presentation

• Context– OISE mission, core contributions, & organization– Supported activities– Importance of CI

• Proposed OISE priorities in CI• Focus on Low-Resource Environments

– Proposed approach– Proposed implementation strategy

• What next?

Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) Mission

To foster international cooperation as an integral part of the NSF’s activities to advance the health of U.S. science and engineering.

http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/int

OISE Core Contributions

• Provide leadership, expertise and representation for US government policy relevant to areas that impact on international scientific collaborations (e.g. national security, intellectual property rights, trade), as well as related country- and region-specific expertise on policy, history and customs

• Provide leadership and expertise with respect to country and regional strengths in science and engineering disciplines, including key institutions, people, and past/current/potential collaborations

OISE Core Contributions (2)

• Enable leveraging of NSF funding via working with foreign counterparts (bilateral co-funding mechanisms) and other sources of funding such as US government agencies with international programs and interests, international organizations, foundations, and corporations

• Provide leadership and expertise in mechanisms for building and sustaining international collaborations, whether researcher-to-researcher, institution-to-institution, center-to-center, or government-to-government

OISE Core Contributions (3)

• Provide leadership in engaging the US science and engineering community in a broad range of international experiences – special emphasis on junior researchers, students,

diversification of the US cadre scientists, and

collaboration with developing countries

OISE Objectives

• Serve as focal point for international S&E activities inside & outside NSF

• Promote an integrated NSF-wide international strategy

• Manage international programs that are innovative, catalytic, and responsive to the broad range of NSF interests

Components of Cyberinfrastructure-Enabled Science & Engineering

CollaborationServices

Knowledge managementinstitutions for collection buildingand curation of data, information,

literature, digital objects

High-performance computingfor modeling, simulation, data

processing/mining

Individual &Group Interfaces& Visualization

Physical World

People

Facilities for activation,manipulation and

construction

Instruments forobservation andcharacterization.

GlobalConnectivity

A broad, systemic, strategic conceptualization

Intrinsically global (international) system for collaboration

What is the Importance of Cyberinfrastructure to OISE?

• Enable transparent collaboration between science and engineering communities worldwide

• Provide US scientists with access to distributed international scientific resources , e.g. instrumentation, data, and computational facilities research partners for/to discover and share new knowledge

• Provide US scientists and their international collaborators with new learning opportunities across distance, time, and fields of expertise

• Foster technological innovation to enhance collaborative research and learning opportunities in low-resource science and education communities, both domestic (e.g. MSIs) and international (e.g. developing countries)  

Characteristics of OISE’s CI-Related Priorities

• Demand-driven: domain science and education opportunities

• Assure benefit to U.S. science and engineering

• Leverage OISE unique/value-added contribution to NSF’s programs and activities

• Highlight the international dimension of CI

• Partnership with CISE emphasizes complementarity in development, implementation and management of international CI elements

Proposed OISE CI-Related Priorities

Domain science international collaborations International partnerships for developing

cyberinfrastructure “Science of International Cyberinfrastructure” Low-resource international scientific

communities

Proposed OISE Priorities:Domain Science Int’l Collaborations

• Objective: Mobilize cyberinfrastructure-enabled collaborations between US scientists and engineers and international research and practitioner communities in various disciplines

• Examples: – Center for High Energy Physics Research and Education

Outreach (CHEPREO) http://www.chepreo.org

– GriPhyN/iVDGL & Grid2003 http://www.ivdgl.org/grid2003/

– GEON-Cyberinfrastructure for the Geoscienceshttp://www.geongrid.org/

Proposed OISE Priorities: Int’l Partnerships for Developing CI

• Objective: Enable the establishment and management of bilateral and multilateral international partnerships for development and deployment of core CI tools, architectures, and infrastructure

• Examples:– International Research Network Connections

http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?ods_key=nsf04560 – Global Ring Network for Advanced Application and

Development (GLORIAD) http://www.gloriad.org/http://apan.net/GLORIAD-Opening-Flash.exe

– Ampath http://www.ampath.fiu.edu/

– Pacific Rim GRID and Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA) http://www.pragma-grid.net/

Proposed OISE Priorities for CI: “Science of Int’l CI”

• Objective: Focusing on the international dimensions of CI, enable multidisciplinary research on the dynamics of CI-facilitated international science, engineering, and education collaborations

• Examples:– May initially come out of HSD solicitation

– Previous CISE awards begin to look generally at socio-technical aspects of collaboratories

Proposed OISE Priorities for CI: Low-resource Int’l Science

Communities • Objective: Leverage relevant elements of the integrated CI

system to provide US scientists and engineers with increased access to international scientific communities in developing countries and other low-resource areas

• Examples:– ICT for Sustainable Development

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~rtongia/itsd.htm

– Network Startup Resource Centerhttp://www.nsrc.org/

– Digital Divide and the HEPGridhttp://www.lishep.uerj.br/index.html

Low-Resource Int’l Science Communities:

Proposed Approach• Identify formal and informal centers of excellence in key domain

sciences and stimulate CI-enabled research and education collaboration

• Extend existing activities to enhance international opportunities for young researchers and students to include focus on opportunities for capacity building, R&E collaboration and technology development in/for low-resource environments

• Supplement support for development of tools, infrastructure, and CI resources (e.g. federated data archives) that would provide CI capabilities and/or functionality to low-resource environments

• Engage external support and partnerships to leverage NSF investments to provide connectivity to developing and other low-resource countries

Low-Resource Int’l Science Communities:Proposed Implementation Strategy

• Identify priorities for development of core infrastructure, including networks and federated data archives and seek to leverage funding to complement CISE-funding of international networking

• Assess currently available open-source technologies and tools

• Create technology roadmaps to include tools for low-resource environments

• Educate, train and develop communities of users of prototype knowledge environments for use in international collaborations

• Develop research for creating new IT tools and resources for low-resource environments

• Enable multidisciplinary research on the dynamics of CI-enabled international science, engineering, and education collaborations in low-resource environments

What Next?

• Reality Check – realistic, effective, feasible?

• Engage the community: needs/demand assessment based on collaborative R&E opportunities; tech asssessment and roadmap

• Engage key collaborative/outreach linkages– Internal NSF– Relevant US government agencies– International organizations (multi- and bilateral)– Foundations– International S&E community

Questions/Discussion

Contact:Lori A. Perine

Lperine@nsf.govLperine@interpretech.com