2022 Cyberinfrastructure for NSF Major Facilities Workshop Report

Report from the 2022 Cyberinfrastructure for Major Facilities (CI4MFs) workshop. The workshop brought together cyberinfrastructure (CI) professionals working within the NSF Major Facilities (MFs), those that are contributing to the national CI ecosystem, and the NSF program directors that support research and development in CI and fund MFs.  

The workshop was organized by CI Compass, the NSF Cyberinfrastructure Center of Excellence, dedicated to the advancement of CI in MFs and beyond.  The Mission of CI Compass is to “provide expertise and active support to cyberinfrastructure practitioners at NSF Major Facilities in order to accelerate the data lifecycle and ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the cyberinfrastructure upon which research and discovery depend.” An important part of that mission is to build a community around CI for MFs. Thus, CI Compass organized a community meeting with the theme of “Getting Together, Working Together”. The theme was designed to emphasize the importance of a community and of collaboration particularly, as individuals and communities were trying to emerge from a global pandemic.

The topics for the workshop were solicited through a survey of MF CI professionals in Fall 2021. From the survey, four main topics emerged: 1) most pressing MF CI challenges and how to best address them, 2) leveraging clouds for MF CI, 3) best practices for making MF data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reproducible, and 4) enhancing the CI workforce, including exploring organizational resilience during disruptive events.