NERC e-Science
Meeting
Malcolm Atkinson
Director
& e-Science Envoy
UK National e-Science Centre
& e-Science Institute
www.nesc.ac.uk
26th April 2006
Overview
Past
Present
Future
Challenges
Behaviours
Commitment
What is e-Science?
Goal: to enable better research in all disciplines
Method: Invention and exploitation of advanced
computational methods
to generate, curate and analyse research data
X
X
From experiments, observations and simulations
Quality management, preservation and reliable evidence
to develop and explore models and simulations
X
X
Computation and data at extreme scales
Trustworthy, economic, timely and relevant results
to enable dynamic distributed virtual organisations
X
X
Facilitating collaboration with information and resource sharing
Security, reliability, accountability, manageability and agility
What is e-Infrastructure – Political view
A shared resource
That enables science,
research, engineering,
medicine, industry, …
It will improve UK /
European / … productivity
X
X
Lisbon Accord 2000
E-Science Vision SR2000 –
John Taylor
Commitment by UK
government
X
Sections 2.23-2.25
Always there
X
c.f. telephones, transport,
power
UK e-Science Budget
(2001-2006)
Total: £213M + £100M via JISC
EPSRC Breakdown
M RC (£21.1M )
10%
EPSRC (£77.7M )
37%
Applied (£35M)
Staff costs 45%Grid Resources
HPC (£11.5M)
BBSRC (£18M )
15%
8%
NERC (£15M )
7%
Computers & Network Core (£31.2M)
40%
PPARC (£57.6M
funded separately 27% )
CLRC (£10M )
5%
ESRC (£13.6M )
6%
+ Industrial Contributions £25M
Source: Science Budget 2003/4 – 2005/6, DTI(OST)
Slide from Steve Newhouse
The e-Science
Centres
Globus Alliance
National
Centre for
e-Social
Science
NERC
e-Science
Centre
Open
Middleware
Infrastructure
Institute
e-Science
Institute
Grid
Operations
Support
Centre
Digital
Curation
Centre
CeSC (Cambridge)
EGEE
National
Institute
for
Environmental
e-Science
The e-Science
Future
Globus Apache
Project & CDIG
National
Centre for
e-Social
Science
NERC
e-Science
Centre
e-Science
Institute
Grid
Operations
Support
Centre
Digital
Curation
Centre
CeSC (Cambridge)
OMII-UK
OMII-UK
EGEE-II
National
Institute
for
Environmental
e-Science
The Future
Inter-disciplinarity
Sharing and finding a common core of facilities
& methods
Recognition & values
How do we make things easy enough to use?