COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH ACTION
JULY 22, 2014
MARIA UHLE (NSF)
LEE ALLISON (ARIZONA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY)

 Welcoming remarks and introductions (Maria and Lee)
– 10:00 am
 Belmont Forum objectives and plans (Maria)
- 10:05 am
 Update on the E-Infrastructure CRA, including revised timeline and deliverables (Lee)
- 10:15 am
 WPs updates (objectives, activities, challenges) (WP members)
10:40 am
 Open discussion and Q&A (All)
11:20 am
 Closing remarks and thanks (Maria and Lee)
11:55 am

World’s leading funders of global environmental change research and international science councils

Established to foster global environmental change research;
Initiated June 2009 by NSF and NERC, building on IGFA

 Australia
 Austria
 Brazil
 Canada
 China
 France
 European
Commission
 Germany
 Italy*
 India
 Japan
 Norway
 South Africa
 Sweden*
 UK
 USA
 Int’l Council for Science
 Int’l Social Science
Council
*Will officially join the Belmont Forum in 2014

To deliver knowledge needed for action to avoid and adapt to detrimental environmental change, including extreme hazardous events.
This requires:
 Assessments of risks, impacts and vulnerabilities, through regional and decadal-scale analysis and prediction
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Information on the state of the environment, through advanced observing systems
Interaction of natural and social sciences
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Enhanced environmental information service providers to users
Effective international coordination mechanisms

 Address the Belmont Challenge
 Societally relevant global environmental change challenges
 A minimum of 3 BF countries is required to form a CRA
 Interdisciplinary (Natural and Social sciences)
 Clear links to research users
 Support for capacity-building

 Networking / community-building actions
 Calls to run a summer schools or develop training material
 Small-scale, catalyst projects to enable the establishment of interdisciplinary partnerships, pilot studies, and the development of new methodologies
 Larger scale research activities, etc., whatever is most appropriate to address the issue in question
 Others TBD

CURRENT, PAST AND FUTURE FUNDING CALLS (CRAs)
 2012
 Coastal Vulnerability - Funded
 Freshwater Security - Funded
 2013
 Food Security and Land Use Change
- Funded
 2014
 Arctic: Call for Proposals - Closes July
30, 2014
 Biodiversity - Closed
 2015
 Mountains as Sentinels of Change -To be announced
 E-Infrastructure & Data Management –
Under study

 Goals
 Review CRA priorities
 Identify a list of topics/key questions the CRA will focus on
 Identify the best mechanisms/activities to deliver the desired results
 Develop strategy and options for coordination among activities
 Identify key communities for collaboration

“….the need to address global environmental challenges requires a more coordinated approach to the planning, implementation, and management of data, analytics and E-
Infrastructures” through international
collaboration.
- Belmont Forum, New Delhi, February 2013

 Identify strategic science policies, outlining what
can be done better, in a multilateral way, to support global change research
 Vision that clearly expresses global e-infrastructure needs, barriers and gaps
 Informs stakeholders
 Prioritizes action to address the interoperability challenges
 Integrates existing national and international research in order to promote more holistic environmental support systems
OBJECTIVES AND BROADER IMPACTS

 Recommendations could consist of one or more funding calls
(CRAs) and/or policies/procedural changes:
 Actions that produce quick wins leading to recognizable results
 Strategic leverage points to make a big difference with small sums of money or policy changes
 Analysis of funding mechanisms that best sustain e-infrastructures
 Strategic community-building initiatives around data infrastructures
 Process to engage the BF in the co-design of future CRAs to keep pace with changing global e-infrastructure landscape
OBJECTIVES AND BROADER IMPACTS

MULTI-PHASE BELMONT FORUM PROJECT
Phase I: (current effort) Phase II: (BF will decide what to do)
September 2013 – April 2015 Starts in 2015/2016
 Series of collaborative scoping
activities instead of a competitive call for small grants
 Begin delivering on Implementation
Plan based on input from the Knowledge
Hub activities
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Focus on reducing the risk of fragmenting existing communities and excluding important players
 Depends on outcomes of Phase I and funding agency participation
Produce a Community Strategy and Implementation Plan
 May include a funding call to implement
the strategies and vision from Phase I
E-INFRASTRUCTURES AND DATA MANAGEMENT CRA OVERVIEW

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International Steering Committee (14 people)
1 member per country or international organization
Members lead six Work Packages (WPs) / working groups
 6 Work Packages (120 people, ~ 10 per country)
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 ~ 20 people per WP
Project Secretariat – jointly funded by US (NSF) and UK (NERC)

 WP1: Data Integration for
Multidisciplinary Research
 WP2: Improved interface between the computation and data infrastructures
 WP3: Harmonization of global data infrastructure for sharing environmental data
ASSEMBLY AND ROLE OF THE WORK PACKAGES
 WP4: Data Sharing
 WP5: Open Data
 WP 6 : Capacity Building
(cross-cutting)

ROLE OF THE ASSEMBLY MEMBERS AND WORK PACKAGES
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Provide evidence to support recommendations on how the BF can best support e-infrastructure
Each individual:
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Brings a unique area of expertise, so all contributions are critical and
valuable
Should draw on her or his knowledge/expertise to identify existing capabilities, gaps and remaining research challenges in both technical and governance arenas
Already participates in a number of international and national initiatives, and so can take a holistic view
ASSEMBLY AND ROLE OF THE WORK PACKAGES

 Initial WP reports:
Due August 11, 2014 to project
 Interim Report:
Due September 15, 2014 to GPC
 Community Strategy and Implementation Plan
 Draft due in January 2015
 Final due in March/April 2015
 Other Work Package Deliverables TBD
DELIVERABLES

 Initial WP internal deliverables are due by August 11, 2014:
1.
Review of the existing situation/lay of the land in each WP focus area(s)
2.
3.
4.
Identify the need to take action in a particular area: What are the issues that need to be addressed and why?
Identify whether a CRA could address this issue. If so, how?
Identify strategic policies or actions that BF could take to address this issue
 Final deliverables for the Plan will include documentation to support recommendations
DELIVERABLES

 October 2013: Steering Committee Meeting in Windsor, UK, to define
WPs and WP leadership
 November 2013 – February 2014: Finalize WP workplans and populate WPs with Assembly members
 August 11, 2014: WPs provide a report on preliminary findings to the
Secretariat
 August 21-22: Steering Committee meeting to synthesize WP findings into a cohesive interim report
 September 15: Interim report due to the Belmont Forum
E-INFRASTRUCTURES AND DATA MANAGEMENT CRA OVERVIEW

(CONTINUED)
 October 8-10: Belmont Forum Plenary Meeting in Beijing, China to decide CRAs released in 2015
 October – December : Executive summary of the interim report publicly disseminated and feedback solicited
 December 13-14: SC meeting in San Francisco, USA
 January 15, 2015: Draft Community Strategy and Implementation Plan due to the Belmont Forum Principals
 March/April 2015: Community Strategy and Implementation Plan due.
E-INFRASTRUCTURES AND DATA MANAGEMENT CRA OVERVIEW

US DELEGATION (1) – WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
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Allison, Lee: Arizona Geological Survey
Arrigo, Jennifer: Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.
Cavalier, Darlene: SciStarter
Chandler, Cynthia: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Chen, Robert: Columbia University – Center for International Earth Science Information Network
Contreras, Jorge: American University – College of Law
Entwisle, Barbara: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – Department of Sociology
Foster, Ian: University of Chicago – Department of Computer Sciences

US DELEGATION (11)– WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
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Hedstrom, Margaret: University of Michigan – School of Information Sciences
Lehnert, Kerstin: Columbia University - Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory)
Michener, William: University of New Mexico - DataONE
Parsons, Mark: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – Research Data Alliance
Reichman, Jerome: Duke University – School of Law
Rose, Kevin: * University of Wisconsin 
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Wee, Brian: National Ecological Observatories Network, Inc.
Wilbanks, John: Sage Bionetworks
 Zaslavsky, Ilya: San Diego Supercomputer Center
*Not funded by the NSF to participate in this effort.