Monthly Archives: August 2014

CERN Workshop: Cloud Services for File Synchronisation and Sharing

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I’m adding this to the blog following an email out across department. The workshop is taking place 17-18 November 2014 and organisers are looking for participants as well as attendees.

The objective of the workshop is to share experience and progress for technologies and services for cloud storage file synchronization and file sharing.

Cloud storage services for scientific and technical activities allow groups of researches to share, transfer and synchronize files between their personal computers, mobile devices and large scientific data repositories. Adding synchronization capabilities to existing large-scale data repository of an experiment (typically above the 1-PB mark) creates an opportunity for new scenarios for data analysis. The challenges include seamless data sharing across working groups and providing an extremely easy to use interface available on all client platforms.

The workshop coincides with the launch of such a service at CERN with the intent to serve CERN research communities integrating the existing disk storage (currently about 50 PB of physics data) with a 10,000 physicists community. The user community CERN is serving for the LHC is highly mobile and completely distributed (more than 100 countries).

In the workshop we will review the state of the art technologies and evaluate the experience in running such services for technical and scientific communities and to present the plans of concrete service implementations.

We invite you submit abstracts (abstract submission 26-AUG-2014 — 30-SEP-2014) using the link from the workshop page (https://indico.cern.ch/event/336753/call-for-abstracts/submit).

Changes to the ERC 2015 Work Programme

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The ERC made a number of changes between the 2014 and 2015 Work Programmes, which are summarised in this article.
ERC Logo

  • There is now no maximum limit for extensions to the eligibility window for Starting and Consolidator Grant calls.
  • Extensions to eligibility are now available for long term (over 90 days) illness of a relative (child, spouse, parent, sibling) as well as of the PI.
  • There has been a slight increase to the budget for Proof of Concept grants from EUR 15 million to EUR 20 million.
  • There are now 3 rather than 2 deadlines for the Proof of Concept call (February 2015/May 2015/October 2015).
  • There is no longer a pre-allocated budget split between the 3 domains (PE, LS, SH), the split will be determined based on the number of applications to each domain.
  • There is a new rule on multiple applications: ‘a PI may submit proposals to different ERC frontier grant calls under the same Work Programme, but only the first eligible proposal will be evaluated’.
  • The Consolidator Grant call now only requires 40% time commitment from the PI (in previous years this was 50%).

Mathematics and Digital Science Consultation

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Horizon 2020 is offering many opportunities for researchers to contribute and shape the future of the programme. This particular online consultation aims to explore how mathematics can help science to better address the Big Data and high performance computing (HPC) challenges.

This consultation will stay open till 30 September 2014 and will gather opinions about:

  • The role of mathematics in big data
  • The role of mathematics in HPC, in particular exascale computing
  • The role of e-infrastructures in maths
  • The impact of applied and industrial mathematics on innovation
  • The preparation of the FET Proactive (HPC) and/or the e-Infrastructure Work Programmes 2016-17 under the Excellent Science pillar of Horizon 2020
  • Other suggestions for new mathematics related topics to be discussed online or in an upcoming workshop, including new practices in mathematics that could be stimulated by e-infrastructure and online collaborative media

If you would like to contribute or would just like more info (including reading the ongoing discussion) please visit this link: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/content/mathematics-and-digital-science

ResearchFish (ROS Replacement): RCUK Roadshows

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ResearchFishLogo

Many of you may already know that ROS (Research Outcomes System) is being retired by RCUK and they are now harmonising across all research councils by implementing ResearchFish (https://www.researchfish.com/)

For those of you who are not familiar with either of these systems, they exist to help research funders track the impacts of their investments and allow researchers to easily log the outcomes of their work (in an ideal world at least). All RCUK funders will be using this new system (AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC & STFC) so I expect this will have an impact on many of you in department.

As there was some confusion and unhappiness with ROS, the previous system, I strongly recommend that you attend one of the sessions outlined below, to find out more about this new system and raise questions about any future concerns you may have.

Monday 6th October
Hilton London Euston
17-18 Upper Woburn Place, Bloomsbury
London,
WC1H 0HT

Tuesday 7th October
Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel
Piccadilly Plaza, Portland St
Manchester, M1 4PH

Wednesday 8th October
Novotel Edinburgh Centre
80 Lauriston Place
Edinburgh, EH3 9DE

If you would like to attend one of these roadshows then please email roh@rcuk.ac.uk with the following information:

  • Your name and job title
  • Organisation name
  • Date you would like to attend
  • Any dietary or mobility requirements

If you would like the day to cover the following topics:

  • Why outcome data needs to be collected
  • Examples of how outcome data has been used
  • Researchfish demonstration
  • What other organisations use Researchfish
  • Future plans for outcomes collection
  • Questions and answer session
  • Whether there is anything else you would like RCUK to talk about

Wellcome Image Awards 2015

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Wellcome Images

Spark the imagination – Submit your images now

The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2014.

If you are a research scientist, photographer or illustrator, your images could reach a global audience. The winning images will go on display at science centres and public galleries across the UK.

To see previous winners, visit: wellcomeimageawards.org

For more information email Sabrina Taner: s.taner@wellcome.ac.uk