The E-Infrastructure Leadership Council - co-chaired by Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, and Dominic Tildesley - provides advice to government about its spending on e-infrastructure (computer, networks, data, skills, people etc); an area that is currently getting large levels of investment.
One working group is charged with providing recommendations on behalf of SMEs . They have put together a survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/einfrastructure and they would like your input, particularly if you are in charge of or heavily involved in IT/large scale computing in your company.
Background
In late July 2011, David Willetts, the UK's Minister for Universities and Science, invited academics, industrialists, hardware and software suppliers and experts from the Research Councils to discuss the establishment of an e-infrastructure roadmap for the UK. Following on that, a report was written exploring these issues, a significant investment was made for a 10-year roadmap, and a leadership council was assembled to advise the government on how best to spend this investment for the maximum public good.
The funds allocated to this project come from the hard infrastructure budget for the UK (roads, tolls, etc.), dedicated in this programme to “e-infrastructure” - digital infrastructure to help business, academia, industry, and the research enterprise. This includes funding and maintenance of a plethora of things: networks, computation, software, skills training, technologies. Together with other representatives from industry, academe, funding bodies and officials, we will be advising the government on how best to use these funds over the next 10 years to help encourage e-science, technological development, and emerging business.
Your input will help inform us on the needs of you and your community, as well as help us better gauge the public’s awareness of existing initiatives that may be under-utilized or under-promoted (or both).
Your answers will directly influence policy and funding allocated under this programme. This is your chance to help us shape our 10-year roadmap for e-infrastructure in this country.
The survey should take no more than 10 minutes, and is targeted towards the start-up community, researchers and those in academia interested in pursuing commercial opportunities or involved in spin-outs and small/medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. Others outside of these communities are more than welcome to submit their responses, as well.
Results of this survey will be made publicly available under a CC-BY license, and will be posted online for use outside of the ELC.
If you have any questions, please contact Kaitlin Thaney, the chair of this working group, reachable at kaitlin@digital-science.com. This survey closes on 13 June 2012.
(This survey builds off the Tildesley report "A Strategic Vision for UK e-Infrastructure, accessible here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/science/docs/s/12-517-strategic-vision-for-uk-e-infrastructure.pdf)
To take part in the survey please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/einfrastructure