Commitment to Coordination for increased effect
The very active UK e-Science community has had a major influence on the international
development and adoption of standards. There is a growing need for investment in standards as
the complexity, scope and ambition of e-Infrastructure increases, as the number of countries,
projects and organisations engaged in delivering e-Infrastructure grows rapidly, and as the user
communities become more diverse. Without standards it will not be possible to deliver and
support high-quality, sustainable, internationally inter-operating e-Infrastructures. Therefore
investment in standards and UK commitment to develop and adopt them must be sustained.
Open standards developed and deployed by global consortia are the best insurance that the
deployed e-Infrastructures will remain open to meet research, governmental, industrial and
commercial needs and will remain accessible to those that wish to develop them to meet new
requirements in their sector or research discipline.
Developing common understanding, collecting and refining use cases, converging on agreed
specifications, evaluating and revising those specifications, and concluding a standard, is a long,
arduous and labour intensive process. It cannot be conducted without support. There are two costs, the
investment of time by leading practitioners (>6 staff years/year) and the incidental but non-trivial
travel and subsistence costs incurred. The GridNet proposals only address the latter. UK
e-Scientists have willingly donated their time, and their employers and principal investigators
have considered this a worthwhile investment. Typically research grants and institutions do not
have funds to cover the incidental costs and it is therefore necessary to continue GridNet
funding if the UK is to continue to play strongly in standards development.
We may soon encounter a time where major standards warrant invested time but no institution or project is able to
donate staff effort. This proposal does not cover that eventuality. SDOs depend on nearly full-time
staff for leadership roles – the UK may in the future contribute and hence pay for such leaders.
That eventuality is also not considered here.
During GridNet1 the UK engagement grew as the maturity of the UK community developed and
as the number of relevant standards activities increased. The growing complexity and the
urgency of standardisation work in web service and grid contexts means that we now need to
invest further and have increasing engagement in steering the process. Mechanisms are therefore
proposed for stimulating, coordinating and guiding UK standardisation – so that the UK’s voice
becomes more effective.