NSF Workshop on Creating Scientific Software Innovation Institutes for Sustained Cyberinfrastructure Achievement and Excellence

CF21 is a comprehensive vision that recognizes software as a primary modality for science research. The complexity of how disparate software elements form a cohesive, sustainable cyberinfrastructure becomes staggering, as more elements are produced from an increasing number of funded initiatives targeting technological capability and community interactions at national and international scales. The environmental observatory community ecosystem must encompass all elements comprising this cyberinfrastructure, crosscutting through technologies, disciplines, communities, and practices towards accelerating scientific progress and competitiveness. NSF-funded environmental observatories and related cyberinfrastructure projects are broad and span many communities including AON (Arctic Observing Network), CHyMP (CUAHSI Hydrologic Modeling Platform), CUAHSI HIS (CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System), CZOs (Critical Zone Observatories), HydoNexrad (Hydro Next-generation Radar), LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research), NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network), OOI (Ocean Observing Initiative), and WSC (Water Sustainability and Climate Program). Each of these has their own software development efforts and has overlapping cyberinfrastructure requirements and science agendas, yet there is no unified effort that facilitates sustainable research, education and communication cross-cutting through all of them.

This NSF-sponsored workshop provides a forum for exploring how to realize the CF21 vision and yield robust, sustainable products and methods that respond to the growing cyberinfrastructure needs of the environmental observatory communities. It addresses community architectures driving effective governance models for coordination of sustainable community practices including integration of community workflows, interoperability of resources, and virtual organization principles that will drive new science at the interstices of these communities. The workshop provides the opportunity for open discussion among leaders in each of the environmental observatories, industry, HPC, grid, cloud, campus bridging and workforce training on the topic of what constitutes a successful S2I2 institute.