NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure

At the most recent meeting of the National Science Board (NSB), Dr. Arden Bement, Director of the NSF announced the creation of a new Office of Cyberinfrastructure reporting to the Director. The current Division of Shared Cyberinfrastructure (SCI) within CISE will be subsumed by the  this new office. A internal plan giving more details about the function and priorities of this office is now under internal review, including by members of the NSB.  Within one or two months a public version of the report will be made available and comments will be actively sought from a broad set of stakeholders. A director for the new office will be sought beginning late summer or early fall.

In my view this is a very good move consistent with the foundation-wide nature of an advanced cyberinfrastructure program. It is very consistent with the recommendations of the Advisory Panel of Cyberinfrastructure I chaired. CISE will continue to be an indispensable directorate for R&D relevant to creating advanced cyberinfrastructure, but it will no longer be expected to take the responsibility for coordination with other directorates and federal agencies around provisioning and advanced application in other disciplines. I believe this will be good for all concerned.

Comments

[Ruzena Bajcsy]

My concern is it could become too much infrastructure (build another Internet2?) and not enough recognition given to the fact that there are unsloved CS research problems in ordre to build trully inovative CYBER infrastructure.

[Dan Atkins]

I share that concern and have already had some constructive discussions about it with NSF people. I am chairng the CoV for the CISE/SCI Division on June 20-22. We have been asked to provide input to the director on the role of the new office and we will make a point abou tthe need for close links between basic research, prototype development, and production deployment. I will do what I can to mitigate the concern you express. I think others need to raise the issue as well.