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eResearch2020: Roadmap of eResearch2020: Roadmap of strategies supporting e-strategies supporting e-Infrastructure policiesInfrastructure policies

Ralph SchroederOxford Internet Institute

e-Research 2020 Final Workshop, 24 February 2010

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Outline• Lessons from Case Studies and Survey• Key Topics• 4 Scenarios• 14 Recommendations

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Lessons from Case Studies and Survey 1: Disciplinary and Organizational Differences

• e-Research communities tend to either sit within well-defined disciplines, or they are more diffuse and need to adapt to a larger changing environment

• There is a split between more straightforwardly organized computing intensive projects - versus more sensitive data oriented organizationally ‘messy’ projects

• Maturity brings out differences between disciplines. In mature disciplines, challenges have become clear

• Latecomers to e-Research are interested in access to organizations, and resources and training - and challenges are yet to be identified

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Lessons from Case Studies and Survey 2: e-Infrastructure Patterns

• There is an interesting mix of clusters which points to variety – healthy pluralism? Or heterogeneous stages and polymorphous crystallizations?

• A subset of national, data-centric e-Infrastructures with organizational barriers – set the data free!

• A subset of global, compute- and technology- centric e-Infrastructures without barriers – are technological threats like clouds important?

• Metagovernance: an external layer on top of organizations using technology to mediate between them

• A clearer mapping of socio-technical ‘ideal types’ to disciplines and transdisciplines is still missing

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Key Topics for Policy

• The various types of current EU policies on research infrastructure

• Typologies – types of infrastructures• Bottlenecks – technical and social• Integrations and Heterogeneities• Supporting researchers versus supporting

society-at-large• Priorities in e-Infrastructure policy:

Research quality in the future?:

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Four Scenarios

• Scenario 1: Research Revolution • Scenario 2: Winners and Losers• Scenario 3: A Many-Headed Beast• Scenario 4: European e-Infrastructures

overtaken in the fast lane

N.B. Scenarios are likely to mixed!

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Two DimensionsHomogeneous developments

Mixed Fortunes

Large uptake Research Revolution Winners and

Losers

Little uptake

Overtaken

A Many-Headed Beast

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Scenario 1: Research Revolution

• Large-scale collaboration, data- and tool- intensive• The nature of research is fundamentally transformed and

carried out in distributed mode• Change takes place across all disciplines and there is

cross-disciplinary fertilization• Change takes place on all levels of research

(infrastructures, applications, daily practices) and all levels, including in schools

• Industry joins up with the research community and there are links to e-Government, e-Health and the public

• Public funding is complemented by private funding, an ‘open science’ ethos prevails

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Scenario 2: Winners and Losers

• Some disciplines have strong uptake, succeed in creating strong communities, and move to new research questions

• Other disciplines have weak uptake, fall behind in creating collaborative communities, retreat into disciplinary silos

• Some disciplines and transdisciplinary communities mature rapidly, others don’t get beyond planning

• Some fields gain via data- and resource-sharing, others are unable to benefit

• Winners move forward and e-Research supports collaboration and healthy competition in the field, losers are left behind

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Scenario 3: A Many-Headed Beast

• Only certain fields develop e-Infrastructures - others concentrate on large facilities, still others focus on Web 2.0, e-Research is ignored in some areas – a plethora of directions

• Some areas duplicate efforts, in others there are no e-Research efforts or different directions

• A mixture of private and public funding, neither across the board, and funding is concentrated in pockets

• There are enormous disparities between sciences, social sciences, and humanities in funding (with little for humanities, even though there is much potential for cross-pollination with cultural heritage, educational outreach, and public access)

• A mixture of strong and weak research identities, large geographical variation, efforts separated by technologies and possibilities for collaboration

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Scenario 4: European e-Infrastructures overtaken in the fast lane

• EU e-Infrastructures are overtaken by developments in the US and Asia, where there is more uptake of newer technologies other than e-Infrastructures

• Technological and social developments (clouds become a commercial Google or Amazon service in the US, petabyte libraries on mobile phones become common in Asia) overtake Grids, supercomputing and other research infrastructures – enabling computing-based research to move onto different terrain

• Data storage and compute resources become a commodity outside of research, so that shared public e-Infrastructures have little uptake outside universities

• Within research, e-Infrastructure investment atrophies• Research quality and competitiveness in the EU suffers decline

compared to Asian and US research

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Scenarios applied to Organizational Models

• Scenario 1. Research Revolution– On the fly integration of worldwide research organizations

• Scenario 2. Winners and Losers:– Partial organizational integration, especially in the hard and life

sciences. Changing inter-organizational structure requires some time and effort

• Scenario 3: A Many-Headed Beast– Organizational ties are still experimental, based on funding

opportunities and research needs. Establishing relationships requires considerable efforts

• Scenario 4. European Infrastructures overtaken in the fast lane: – Organizations engage in in-house research, rarely in

collaboration with national partners. Large collaborations, such as high-energy physics, are an exception

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Recommendations arising from Scenarios and Risks

• Tools and mechanisms available to the Commission and policymakers include:– Better knowledge of impact and impact (evaluation may be

premature, but is also ongoing: Early lessons learned?)– Metrics of ‘customer satisfaction’, also to underpin

sustainability– Best practices, to be exchanged between diverse fields,

also need more systematic analysis– Standardization and harmonization, esp. for data sharing,

remove barriers step-by-step– Legislation and regulation as enablers (ERICs)– Mandate sharing and reward using funding policies

• A future of technology-agnosticism and service orientation• Risk management to focus on user uptake and demand

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Roadmap Recommendations to e-Infrastructure Research Policymakers

1.Researchers increasingly depend on advanced e-Infrastructures for research to compete and address urgent challengese-Infrastructure development should be a key priority for policymakers.

2. Sustainability is a key issue, and resources must be committed for extended (10+ year) periods in order to enable planning and well-integrated platforms.

3. Uncertainties around funding are the single-largest perceived barrier. Clear plans and funding agendas could overcome these.

4. The key challenge has moved on from being the ‘data deluge’ to coordination, safeguarding, sharing and re-use of data. Mandating clear policies to share data in re-usable ways are essential.

5. There are currently few rewards contributions to e-Infrastructure or for sharing data and tools, and mechanisms are needed reward researchers to do this.

6. ‘Openness’ has been a principle in e-Infrastructures. Open source software and open publishing already show successes, but more coordination is needed to apply openness to standards and interoperability.

7. Governance and metagovernance strategies are still emerging ad hoc (ERICs are now possible). Policy mechanisms at the EU level can overcome uncertainty.

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Recommendations Part II8. Researchers are rapidly changing, but education and training have lagged

behind. This should be among the highest priorities in future planning and funding.

9. There are overlapping efforts in a variety of disciplines, and no ‘one size fits all’ model should be imposed. e-Infrastructures should be open to supporting all fields and subfields. Many opportunities for sharing resources are unexploited and funding for cross-disciplinary teams and efforts is needed.

10. e-Infrastructures have so far focused on a few high profile exemplars where applications are clear. Future efforts must focus on generating and enabling completely novel applications to problems in which distributed computing has not yet been applied.

11. Standards and interoperability are crucial, mandating can help12. Indicators and measurement should be undertaken 13. Barriers to participation by industrial research partners to be removed14. Further research into effectiveness and future potential is needed,

especially the social dynamic