Dr Mark Parsons
NeSC Commercial Director
EPCC Commercial Manager m.parsons@epcc.ed.ac.uk

the Grid will only be seen as a success if it is adopted outside academic community by involving industry early we can ensure the developments are in line with industry’s needs disseminate the relevance to industry ensure the technologies that emerge are adopted as industry standards develop more robust properly engineered solutions make use of industry expertise & technologies we would not have normally have access to

previous statements very IT industry focused by involving industry we can also develop new ways to solve their scientific, technical and business challenges
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 tackling previously infeasible problems doing things bigger, better, faster develop new methods of working
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 increasing productivity, profitability and competitiveness creating virtual organisations etc

there are several options for funding directly funded industry projects but may be hard to convince industry to part with cash
 economic situation isn’t great
 much Grid technology is still to be developed
DTI/EPSRC funding open call for e-Science projects
Grid Core Programme there is no ring-fenced pure research funding
European Union funding last call for FP 5, FP 6 on the horizon

European Commission were very fast to fund Grid projects funded largest – DataGrid (10M€) – in 2000 to date 11 projects funded variety of Action Lines in 2 Key Actions main unit has been Research Networking final call of Framework 5 is now open closing date 21 st February 2002 call text contains Grid Action Lines probably not enough time to prepare proposal

Framework 6 starts 2003
EPCC has played major role in EC Grid strategy setting
Grid workshop report: http://www.cordis.lu/ist/rn/grid_ws.htm
for Research Networking and Key Action 2 input to FP6 see: http://www.cordis.lu/ist/fp6/fp6consult.htm
look at bottom of page for PCM3 and PCM13 reports

first call expected in late 2002 workprogramme still being finalised contains strong references to Grid activities but may be delayed not clear if RN have retained promised budget big opportunities for projects funding structure/project size may prove interesting lack of interest from UK CS community?

full details can be found at http://www.research-councils.ac.uk/escience open call has approximately £5million to spend apparently not much has been spent so far this should be first port of call for funding programme focuses on short-term research to address major technical challenges of e-Science proposals must involve significant industrial contribution cash or in-kind – further comments later overall programme expects 50% of total requested use EPS(eRP) form for application

suggested areas of research include resource management and brokering meta-data and data management remote instrumentation and data analysis large-scale visualisation and feature recognition security and privacy quality of service and dependability wide set of areas full details on website good opportunities for funding

Grid Core Programme major part of NeSC activities
£3million over 3 years designed to fund collaborative, shared cost projects with industry main aim is to develop generic, core technology Grid components to enable the UK to demonstrate international leadership in e-
Science and Grid technologies

two types of projects core technology driven collaborations with IT vendors application driven collaborations with industrial and commercial early-adopters results must be reusable and generic most results will be made freely available to the Grid community as Open Source access to foreground IPR from some results – eg. close to core business of partners – may be kept within the project

NeSC also has regional role in Scotland intends to make small proportion of GCP funds available to all Scottish Universities
NB. most projects should go to the Open
Call projects proposed to NeSC will be selected based on their technical quality and complementarity with goals of the NeSC if selected be passed to DTI/EPSRC for review and approval or rejection

proposals must involve academic department(s) industrial partner(s) procedure is prepare proposal in predefined format
 available from Commercial Director (me) agree in-kind funding with industrial/commercial partner(s) send proposal to NeSC for review
 proposal will be reviewed by 2 members of NeSC executive
+ 1 reviewer chosen for specific knowledge
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NeSC executive board has final say if proposal should be sent to DTI/EPSRC for review

if accepted for submission to DTI short form to be filled in GRID (1) if accepted by DTI longer form to fill in GRID (2SA) contract issued by DTI to partners receiving funding
NeSC contract ammended main points crucial to success is getting in-kind in place decision of NeSC executive is final

in-kind contributions required for Open
Call and GCP projects eg. if an academic partner project requires £50,000 from DTI then £50,000 inkind must be committed by industry total project value is then £100,000 in-kind can be company staff effort – salary + NI & pension + travel + overheads (50-130%) equipment software licences cash

audit certificates are not required from industrial/commercial partners unless they receive money from the DTI funding as part of the project but … good record keeping is vital claims will not be accepted without corresponding in-kind justification must be defensible to auditors

still early days in terms of Grid technology for many companies current Grid work is completely irrelevant companies are only interested in work which directly benefits their business there are some early adopter companies – mostly the usual suspects the global IT players are taking the Grid seriously
 a large part of the NeSC’s work is to form strategic relationships with these companies successful Grid projects will be quite close to market … and use good sw eng skills

various avenues for funding exist
EU Framework 6
DTI/EPSRC Open Call  most promising
NeSC GCP funding all options involve working with industry there is no straightforward research programme if you want to discuss project proposals please talk to us!