The understanding of Research Infrastructures (RI) in the project OSIRIS
(Towards an Open and Sustainable ICT Research Infrastructure Strategy)
follows the definition of the FP7 Capacities proposed in the Work Programme
2010 - Capacities Part 1. Research Infrastructures:
... the term 'research infrastructures' refers to facilities,
resources and related services that are used by the scientific community
to
conduct top-level research in their respective fields. This definition
covers:
major scientific equipment or set of instruments; knowledge based-resources
such as collections, archives or structured scientific information;
enabling ICT-based e-Infrastructures such as Grid, computing,
software and communication
networks; any other entity of a unique nature essential to achieve
excellence in research. Such infrastructures
may be 'single-sited' or 'distributed'
(a network of resources).
ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures)
in its Roadmap
2008 proposes a similar definition:
They are facilities, resources or services of a unique nature
that have been identified by pan-European research communities
to conduct
top-level
activities in all fields
This definition underlines the unique character of the facilities
to be recognized as a Research Infrastructure.
Generally the Research Infrastructures are divided into the
following groups:
- single-sited
- distributed
- virtual RIs
This classification allows further analysis of the real situation
especially from the ICT point of view.
The homepage
of the European Commission lists examples of RIs. These
examples include singular large-scale research installations,
collections, special habitats, libraries, databases,
biological archives, clean
rooms, integrated arrays of small research installations,
high-capacity/high speed communication networks, highly
distributed capacity and
capability computing facilities, data infrastructure,
research vessels, satellite
and aircraft observation facilities, coastal observatories,
telescopes, synchrotrons and accelerators, networks
of computing facilities,
as well
as infrastructural centres of competence which provide
a service for the wider research community based on an assembly
of techniques
and know-how.
This list of the Research Infrastructure examples
shows that many of the distributed RIs will exploit
ICT and may be considered
as
e-Infrastructures.
At the same time, it is clear that the single-sited
Research Infrastructures are very important for the
ICT sector, for
example, for the development
of Micro and Nanoelectronics, especially for the
elaboration of new technological process depending
on experimental investigations.
-
The main communication infrastructure for research and education is the European Gigabit Network for Research and Education – GÉANT. There are 36 members (32 member countries and 4 associated countries) in the GÉANT3 network from all over Europe and beyond.
GÉANT Network provides the global and European dimension of the academic network, but the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) provide information and communication services in the national level to the national research and education institutions.E-Infrastructures for computing
The computing infrastructures are crucial for e-science, i.e. for discovering new scientific facts by computer simulation and similar approach. These infrastructures are developing in two directions:
a. The high performance technology represented by supercomputers. For example, PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) was set up to create a persistent pan-European high performance computing service and infrastructure.b. Multidisciplinary grid for scientific computation and data processing. The development of grid infrastructures was very intensive in FP6 and is continued in FP7. The National Grid Initiatives and EGI.eu will work together to operate and further develop a sustainable pan-European grid infrastructure, enabling optimal sharing of computing and data resources.
Instrumental e-Infrastructures
The Roadmap of ESFRI presents a group of infrastructures for instruments. These infrastructures cannot be considered as purely ICT based infrastructures, they are rather infrastructures for other scientific areas that have components with ICT technologies for access to these instruments and for transmitting the results. An example is the LHC (The Large Hadron Collider) that not only exploits ICT technologies but also has initiated serious progress in the grid technologies development. As already mentioned above, the communication infrastructure GÉANT also provides research in communication technologies, and it becomes rather senseless to discuss if GÉANT is a communication infrastructure or an infrastructure for instruments also.
It is widely believed that the fourth paradigm to the scientific research – data intensive science – is emerging. The ESFRI Roadmap shows that this is reality, because most of the infrastructures are created for gathering raw experimental or observation data. These data are collected and stored in huge data bases and provided to the scientific communities of Europe and beyond for further processing.
These infrastructures belong to the scientific areas different from ICT, but their success is determined by the development of ICT technologies (new devices for massive data storage) and especially by the development of the processing methods for huge data volumes – advanced data search, data mining, knowledge representation, intelligent agents, etc.Micro and Nano Technology Research Infrastructures
For the progress in the ICT sector it is important to have modern experimental facilities in Micro and Nano Technologies including those developing industrial technological processes. Creation of such Research Infrastructures was started already under the FP6.
An example is the FP6 Research Infrastructure project MNT-Europe (Staircase towards European MNT Infrastructure Integration) that has led to the creation of a unique distributed platform for research and development in the field of Micro and Nano Technologies (MNT) based on the national facilities. In the frame of this project, it has been observed that a distributed MNT fabrication facility is not feasible due to possible cross-contamination of products (wafers) at various stages of the fabrication process. The MNT Europe project accepted the presence of large infrastructures where researchers could work on a particular technology. The cooperation between the infrastructures then consists of maximizing the complementarity of the research infrastructures so that all MNT technologies are covered by the infrastructures and only a small number of them compete in the same technologies.
Please click on the video camera below to view some interesting videos on some of the RIs mentioned above:
Current Issues Facing Research Infrastructures
- A need for cross-validated models and guidelines for future European ICT RIs
- Lack of a clearly defined cooperation strategy between Public Authorities and National Research facilities
- Lack of common vision on ways to operate and cooperate in R&D initiatives in the context of European RIs
- Absence of clearly defined public-public partnerships to identify best practices to identify possible private-public partnerships
- Necessity to establish close contact with new instruments developed for the ICT community
- Lack of common policy regarding return of investments
- Lack of a common policy between Public Authorities and National Research Institutes