Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/C536452/1
Title:	Platform: RealityGrid Platform Grant
Principal Investigator:	Coveney, Professor P
Other Investigators:	Hewitt, Professor T Gurd, Professor JR Kalawsky, Professor RS Brooke, Dr J Pickles, Dr SM Sutton, Professor AP Cates, Professor M Kenny, Professor SD
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	BT Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Res Schlumberger Silicon Graphics International Corp SGI Tufts University University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Department:	Chemistry
Organisation:	UCL
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 November 2005	Ends:	30 April 2010	Value (£):	424,909
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	eScience Software Engineering
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Communications Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
Under the original EPSRC e-Science Pilot Project Grant GR/R67699, RealityGrid has made important contributions to grid computing at both national and international levels. The project has developed a reputation for achievement within all areas of its activities in the past three years; we have played a leading role inter alia in the evolution of usable grid middleware, computational steering and scientific research. Global progress toward realisation of the vision of grid computing as providing transparent access to computational resources across multiple administrative boundaries, whether national or global in scale, has been slower than originally anticipated, and a further period of 3-5 years work is required at a similar level of intensity to ensure take-up of the technology. RealityGrid is now poised to play an even more influential role as the original middleware and associated frameworks are being replaced by new approaches that put a premium on allowing users to exploit the underlying infrastructure as easily as possible.As there is still a long way to go it is important for RealityGrid to receive sustained funding into this critical next phase in order to secure and build on the work we have already done and to focus on more strategic goals. A four-year Platform Grant would enable us to pursue our internationally leading gridbased scientific research in mesoscale and multiscale modelling of complex fluids through computational research performed on high end computing resources, and to further the development of coupled multiscale models for soft condensed matter and biological applications, for which the grid provides a natural computational architecture. A Platform Grant would also enable us to contribute to the global effort in grid computing through continuing innovative technical research, including software engineering and computer science, and to disseminate our work at the principal forums (e.g. GGF).We are involved in a large number of other projects which depend on the continued existence of RealityGrid to ensure their own success (for example EPSRC's Integrative Biology e-Science Pilot Project; BBSRC's IntBioSim e-Science Project; the joint EPSRC/PPARC/MRC/BT-funded ESLEA project for bandwidth intensive exemplars exploiting the new UKLight research network; the EPSRC Best Practise Project on rapid Prototyping of Usable Grid Middleware ; the OMII Managed Programme's Robust Hosting of Applications by WSRF::Lite ; and the EU European Grid Project EGEE). To support these many projects, it is vital we retain and grow our expertise in grid computing through retention of key staff who are working on scientific applications, software engineering and computer science within RealityGrid.We shall continue to train significant numbers of PhD students in grid computing; these currently come from ringfenced RealityGrid DTA funding across the partners while numbers are expected to increase through the involvement of other interested students and research assistants, locally at partner sites and through annual RealityGrid meetings and workshops.Overall, a Platform Grant would help us to make grid computing a simple and effective technology for scientific research by allowing us to continue to develop middleware in close association with our scientific applications.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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