News archive - Successful completion of SEERA-EI project
The SEERA-EI project finished in the end of March 2012 after 3 years of activity, successfully setting the framework for the adoption of a common eInfrastructures vision in South East Europe (SEE), and having carried out a number of concrete policy-level actions in the area of SEE and in relationship to wider European eInfrastructure trends. The project brought together key policy-makers in eInfrastructures in South East Europe, and boosted coordination between national eInfrastructure programmes and policies. The initiative was materialized by 19 partners from 10 countries in the region. Overall, SEERA-EI reduced fragmentation of national programmes, created a harmonised approach to national-level initiatives in eInfrastructures, ensured local commitment, and paved the way towards common regional vision, strategy and sustainable cooperation.
SEERA-EI established a platform for information exchange on eInfrastructure issues that enhanced communication among national-level programme managers in the region. Additionally, digital communication tools, active beyond the project life-time, form the basis for interactive communication and content management. The project carried out an in-depth analysis of existing programmes in the wider area of eInfrastructures at national level in SEE countries, as well as an analysis of the status of main components of eInfrastructure: National Research and Education Networks and National Grid/Computing Initiatives. Twenty nine programmes were surveyed and assessed, individually and comparatively. Regional priority areas were defined as: the stability and sustainability of network operations, specifically dark fibres; the emerging computing paradigms such as High- Performance Computing and cloud computing; transnational access and regional end-user applications; and ESFRI integrations.
Two core documents supporting the national policy -making process and programme management were produced. The first, "National Programmes Best Practices" provides the national programme best practices for eInfrastructures regarding relevance, quality, and performance of the programmes. The second, "National Programme Cookbook" is a base-level guide on e-Infrastructure programmes for national programme owners in the SEE region, and provides fundamental framework, with strong alignment with the corresponding EC Framework Programme, for an eInfrastructure programme. SEERA-EI produced guidelines for evaluation of national programmes and actual post evaluation has been carried out, and the joint database of experts in the field of eInfrastructures is operational.
A number of joint official documents, such as the joint common vision and regional strategy of eInfrastructures were created and signed, enabling future work beyond the project lifetime. The vision agreed stated that by 2020, South-East European countries will in all aspects be an equal partner within European infrastructures, while a number of regional infrastructures (networking, grid, HPC, cloud computing, data and VRCs) will be further strengthened. The sharing of those resources between the countries of the region is supported, as well as concepts of joint regional operations and of a mutual open access policy for researchers from the region to national computing infrastructures. Within SEERA-EI, three other Memoranda of Understanding were signed: SEE MoU on Grid and eInfrastructure development; MoU for High-Performance Computing resource sharing in SEE; and MoU on networking collaboration in SEE. Furthermore, the concept of formulating a joint SEE Initiative led to two studies addressing the setting up of a SEE-level operations body for SEELight network, or the possible regional grouping for High-Performance Computing.
Six countries participating in the SEERA-EI project have committed to make national contributions into a "Virtual Common Pot" to fund successful joint research projects: the joint call on Scientific Cloud Computing is being published in May. The expected impact is the increase in regional know-how in cloud computing and its potential applications, and paving the way for the regional cloud computing open environment for research and education.
The project developed liaisons with ESFRI, e-IRG, EGI, PRACE, GEANT, eINFRAnet, EuroRIsNet, and other initiatives, improving the sharing of know-how in terms of policies, programmes and vision within the region and beyond, and enabled transfer of knowledge to improve the regional infrastructure and ease the digital divide.
The excellent collaboration among the members of the project consortium, and the human network of the region, is an essential element of the project success that enables the SEE countries to reduce the fragmentation of the European Research Area.
The sustainable cooperation that has been achieved goes beyond the project lifetime, including liaisons with the industry: it strengthens the region, encourages collaborative eInfrastructure development and high-quality research, and it can serve as a potential platform for driving innovation using research policies, outcomes, schemes, models and technologies.
Source: SEERA-EI newsletter.
- SEE
- Engineering and Technology
Entry created by Elke Dall on May 30, 2012
Modified on May 31, 2012