NSF Taps CRA to Form:
Computing Community Consortium
WASHINGTON, DC, September 18, 2006
The National Science Foundation today announced an agreement with the Computing Research Association (CRA) to establish a consortium of computing experts that will provide scientific leadership and vision on issues related to computing research and future large-scale computing research projects.
Under the three-year, $6 million agreement, CRA will create the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) to identify major research opportunities and establish "grand challenges" for the field. The CCC will create venues for community participation for developing visions and creating new research activities.
One of the first tasks of the CCC will be to assume the role of community proxy organization for the NSF's Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) Project, providing broad scientific oversight to its potential construction and operation. In addition, the CCC will provide scientific oversight for future NSF large-scale computing research initiatives.
A council of 9 to 15 members and a council chair will lead the CCC. All council members will be leaders of the computing research community and will represent the diversity of that community.
"We're pleased that NSF has charged our organization with establishing the CCC," said Dan Reed, chair of the Computing Research Association and director of the Renaissance Computing Institute in North Carolina. "Computing research continues to fuel the innovations that drive economic productivity. We see the CCC as a mechanism that will enable continued innovation by enhancing our community's ability to envision and pursue long-term, audacious computing research goals."
Reed said the main challenges for the CCC will be to catalyze the computing research community to debate long-range research challenges, to build consensus around research visions, to articulate those visions, and to develop the most promising visions into clearly defined initiatives.
We will have more on this announcement shortly, including a white paper. In the interim, you can get some additional context by looking at NSF's original solicitation for the CCC, "Defining the Large-Scale Infrastructure Needs of the Computing Research Community."
We welcome your ideas and expressions of interest and support; e-mail ccc [at] cra.org
