eSCT: eScience Coordination Team

Creating a sustainable national coordination layer for local eScience units

eSCT is part of the SUC P-2 “Scientific information: access, processing and safeguarding” program. The aim of the eSCT initiative is to address the growing need of scientists to access professionally supported information technology (IT) platforms in order to be competitive.

The term ‘eScience’ refers to activities in science that are related to the computation and storage, analysis and publication of data or to the simulation of scientific processes. Several research institutions in Switzerland have created dedicated eScience support units to provide expert support and access to competitive infrastructure for eScience research on topics including complex data management and flexible cloud computing resources.

However, the support levels and services provided is not homogeneous between institutions. Also, not all the institutions are capable of sustaining a dedicated eScience unit. This poses significant challenges on national collaborative research projects where data needs to be shared and exchanged across institutional boundaries.

The aim of this project is to create a coordination layer on top of existing local eScience support units in Switzerland, with the objective of:

• supporting computing in the research sector
• coordinating and increasing the knowledge-base, quality, reach and impact of the already established local Swiss eScience support staff
• motivating the creation of units at institutions that still lag behind
• harmonizing the quality of eScience support across the country

sciCORE is part of the eSCT project as a SciNex (Science IT Netwrok of Excellence) member.