Dear Colleague

Crossing Boundaries: Computational Science, E-Science and Global E-Infrastructures

UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2008, 8-11 September 2008

Edinburgh
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I am writing to announce this year's UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, which is to be held in Edinburgh 8-11 September.

I am delighted to be acting as Chairman of this year's Conference Programme. Both my appointment and the location chosen in 2008 herald a new approach, which is also reflected in the title of this year's meeting. We intend to promote much more seriously the scientific, (in Computer Science terminology "applications"), aspects of e-Science in 2008. I use the word 'scientific' here in the widest sense, as we still intend to maintain as broad participation as we can, including activities in the Arts & Humanities.

To shape the meeting into one which truly achieves the aims implied by its title -- we need to attain a genuine synergy between computer scientists and computational scientists, achievable by facilitating access to and exploitation of all kinds of distinct resources across disparate administrative boundaries. The resources required to change the scientific game are extremely heterogeneous--they include software, middleware, compute, data, storage, visualisation, networks, information, digital sensors and digital communication and all available on demand, not in a piecemeal fashion--but to ensure their effective utilisation requires the development of entirely new policies which facilitate rather than obstruct access. The outcome from such an undertaking is clear -- new, faster, different and better science than has ever been possible before.

Historically, there has been an unnecessary division between "e-Science" and "computational science" in the UK . Computational science, as the "third leg" of modern scientific inquiry, is increasingly ubiquitous, as its methods are common across all fields of science and, owing to the relentless increase in power of modern computing, can be employed within disparate fields of endeavour whose problems have previously been on a scale unattainable with more limited resources available. I use the term "computing" to refer to any form of digital activity.

Computational science brings with it many of the same issues being considered by the e-Science programme: the need for modern approaches to software engineering and development, the ability to exploit a distributed e-infrastructure, appropriate education and training, and proper academic recognition of the skills required and a satisfactory career structure for such individuals.

Many other scientifically advanced countries are embracing these requirements today, and the EU itself continues to invest very substantial sums in e-infrastructure developments and research projects on a supranational scale; UK scientists need to be able to exploit all of this for their own research now and in the future. It is thus becoming increasingly important--in order for the UK to ensure it remains internationally competitive in computational science--for UK scientists to fully embrace these new and advanced computational paradigms. We also wish to assert international leadership of these activities wherever possible; this will be achieved by ensuring strong international participation in the meeting and I hope you will be able to help me also in this respect.

What we are all seeking to realise are genuine step jumps in the capabilities offered by such distributed infrastructure -- to enable us to perform new, faster, better and different scientific research than has hitherto been possible. To keep scientists interested, it is vital that "new, faster, better and different" science is possible easily enough to deliver a return on the investment of effort required. Over the past few years, this has begun to be realised, but it will only snowball if a critical  mass of well informed scientific users is established that influences and directs the nature of the services available. It is the central purpose of this year's meeting to ensure that this occurs.

The meeting will involve a Programme Committee comprised in at least equal measure of scientists and computer scientists. It is essential that many of the themes and workshops within the meeting are organised under an applications/user specified agenda. Until now, there has been considerable difficulty in getting individual universities to fully embrace the distributed computing paradigm, largely because of a lack of understanding of the requirements and a sense that these cannot be reasonably met without compromising existing resources, security requirements, and so on.  One vital theme within this year's meeting will be full engagement with local resource providers as well as the scientists who wish to exploit outward facing resources.

To ensure that scientists feel comfortable in participating, the general approach to talks and papers will be different this year. In particular, we are planning to publish a selection of the best papers submitted to AHM08 in a prestigious journal, about which I hope to have more information very shortly. For this, expressions of interest will need to be prepared, alongside solicitations from a select few of the most distinguised practitioners of computational and/or e-Science; following this, a set of full papers will be invited, subject to rigorous refereeing, prior to acceptance and full publication. It will therefore *not* be necessary in general for contributors to submit manuscripts for review prior to presentation at AHM08. In certain of the Workshop Themes, this may nevertheless still be a requirement, which can be discussed as these Themes get initiated.

Our success will be determined by the extent to which we are able to construct a lively and exciting programme for all anticipated participants, by our ability to build on this meeting to facilitate new ways of doing science, and to create bold new initiatives at national and international levels in the years to come to sustain our international leadership in e-Science and computational science.

I am sure that, together, we will be more than able to meet this challenge!

With best wishes for 2008,

Peter Coveney