Report from the Second Annual EPSRC e-Science Pilot Projects Meeting at
NeSC on Thursday 30th and Friday 31st January 2003
The e-Science Pilot Projects funded by EPSRC met at the National e-Science
Centre (NeSC) for their second annual meeting. As the projects had been in
progress for between 12 and 15 months at this stage, the emphasis of the
meeting was not in presentations from the different projects but in informal
demonstration to sessions, to allow cross-fertilisation of ideas and solutions.
Purpose of Meeting:
For EPSRC e-Science Pilot Projects to provide an update on progress
For EPSRC e-Science Pilot Projects to share ideas and results
To foster collaborations between EPSRC e-Science Pilot Projects
To allow EPSRC e-Science Pilot Projects to perform demonstrations
To discuss studentship and training issues (e.g. summer schools)
To look at common issues and problems across the EPSRC e-Science
Pilot Projects and look for possible solutions
The meeting commenced with updates from each of the 6 projects, to refamiliarise the projects with the activities of the others;
• Nick Sharman - myGrid
• Simon Cox - Geodise
• Yike Guo - DiscoveryNet
• Peter Dew - DAME
• Peter Coveney - RealityGrid
• Jeremy Frey - Comb-e-Chem
The final discussion session of the day served as an introduction to IPR issues of
particular relevance to the Grid environment and the e-Science Programme. A
discussion session made some suggestions that will be fed in to activities of the
Core e-Science Programme, after presentations from;
• Brian Collins - Europium Consulting Ltd,
• John Kelly - JISC Legal Information Service,
• Huw Jones - The Patent Office,
• Paul David - Oxford Internet Institute/Michael Spence – Faculty of Law,
University of Oxford
The second day began with a keynote talk from Steve Tueke of Argonne National
Labs in the US, describing the latest developments from the Globus teams, plus
indications of possible future directions. Of particular relevance to the 6 projects
were the developments of OGSA and OGSI, especially how and when projects
might aim to migrate to Globus Tookit 3.
This was followed by Neil Chue Hong of EPCC/NeSC describing the outputs
from the OGSA-DAI project, which was funded by the Core e-Science
Programme, providing some much-needed tools for designing and implementing
core database access middleware components for the Grid.
Then the projects had the opportunity to discuss technical issues with a panel of
leading Grid experts (the “Three Wise Men” – Steve Tueke, Tony Hey and
Malcolm Atkinson), chaired by Anne Trefethen.
The meeting was completed by presentations from Tony Hey and Vince Osgood,
on future plans for the Core e-Science Programme and the EPSRC e-Science
programme respectively. Both had received follow-on funding from the recent
Spending Review announcement.
The EPSRC would like to thank all the participants from the Pilot Projects for
their enthusiastic participation, and all the invited speakers, particularly Steve
Tueke for not only giving a keynote presentation but also participating in both the
panel discussion sessions, sharing the Globus team’s experiences with the UK.
The EPSRC would also like to thank all the staff at NeSC for their invaluable help
in hosting and supporting the meeting.