About

09 November 2009

What is EUMEDGRID-Support?

The work already done in the EUMEDGRID project has led to a pilot Grid Infrastructure which covers almost all the Mediterranean Area. EUMEDGRID-Support will start from there and make a further step to push towards a larger production quality e-Infrastructure and the adoption of more sustainable organisational models for the provision of services.

EUMEDGRID-Support (2010-2012), kicking off on 1 January 2010, will hold its launch event 25-28 January 2010 in Cairo, Egypt building on the successful outcomes of EUMEDGRID (2006-2008), and spotlight Europe and the Mediterranean and Middle-east regions through an open dialogue aimed at increasing stakeholder and community awareness on the fundamental importance of e-Infrastructures with the ultimate goal of ensuring long-term sustainability. To maximise outcomes, EUMEDGrid-Support adopts a two-fold approach: bottom-up approach - serving to raise awareness among researchers, students and technical personnel who can greatly benefit from using e-Infrastructures in their work; and top-down bringing into sharp relief the need for a policy framework developed with funding bodies highlighting the value-add and need for e-Infrastructures to empower researchers and advance the frontiers of scientific research.

The Mediterranean region is of strategic importance to the EU, in both economic (trade, energy, migration) and political (security, stability) terms.” In the economic domain, the area is still standing both fast demographic and labor force expansion, while a slow economic growth is resulting in high unemployment and stagnating incomes.

With the rapid advancement of technology in the world of science calls for a demand for more and more computing power. The implementation and co-ordination of a grid infrastructure at a national (or larger) level opens up important opportunities to optimise the usage of existing, limited storage and computing resources, improve their accessibility and empower research groups from several domains.

There is no need for e-Infrastructures without a user community correspondingly exploiting them. The project has an important responsibility to support existing user’s applications and assist new applications that will run on the Mediterranean e-Infrastructure. This activity is also committed to study and deliver a strategy for the long-term sustainability of the support system that will be put in place during the project lifetime.

EUMEDGRID-Support is developing and deploying a training program in synergy with the EPIKH project, EUMEDCONNECT2 and other initiatives, to increase the awareness in the region regarding e-Infrastructures and will contribute to enlarge and educate the user communities through training events. Collaboration opportunities are also available to engage the project through a variety channels such the Online Community and as and establish agreements with strategic e-Infrastructure projects and initiatives.

News

Presentations are available for download on the Programme Agenda for the launch event of both EUMEDGRID-Support and EUMEDCONNECT2. The high impact agenda included speakers from the EC Delegation in Cairo, Project Coordinators and Egyptian invited speakers with more than 50 participants on hand.