OMII-UK awarded e-Science funding until 2010
A partnership of UK universities which is working to ensure the UK's international leadership in e-Science has received ã5.6 million in funding.
Software development teams at the Universities of Southampton, Edinburgh, and Manchester, are developing advanced tools and components to empower new research in a wide range of disciplines as part of the UK's e-Science Core Programme. Following on from awards to Edinburgh and Manchester in September 2005, Southampton has now received ã5.6 million of funding to sustain the collaboration between the partners until 2010.
OMII-UK (the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute UK) makes Grid software --which is developed by the UK e-Science Programme and its international collaborators -- available and easy to use by e researchers in all disciplines.
Formed in October 2005 by bringing together internationally recognised e-Science expertise at the three institutions, OMII-UK provides a powerful source of well-engineered software and enables an integrated approach to the provision of higher-level and more advanced tools. The new funding enables OMII-UK to commission further development of open source e-Science software components within the community, and extends Southamptonââ¬â¢s original funding to support OMII-UK until 2010.
ââ¬ËThe advanced software generated by the e-Science programme ultimately enables new research -- it lets users do things more easily, and enables some things that simply werenââ¬â¢t possible before,ââ¬â¢ said Professor David De Roure, who is leading the new phase of the Southampton activity . ââ¬ËOur job is to support and sustain that software in partnership with its user community.ââ¬â¢
OMII-UK is uniquely placed to offer an integrated set of well-engineered open source Grid middleware that incorporates a wide variety of tools and services. Today, these tools perform tasks such as job submission, data integration and semantically guided workflows using Web Services and Grid infrastructure. OMII-UK will develop more advanced tools to empower new research in a wide range of disciplines.
OMII-UK Operations are the responsibility of Director Dr Steven Newhouse, who commented: ââ¬ËWe have established a robust software engineering process that integrates software from our collaborators into a distribution that is easy to install, and I am delighted to enter this exciting new phase with its focus on new users and new collaborations.ââ¬â¢
OMII UK provides a significant basis for international collaborations and standards. Alongside the UK-centred operation, OMII-China and OMII-Europe are also driving forward the OMII concept on the international stage.