Resources for Researchers

Assorted Resources

2021 CC* Grant

The 2021 Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) grant program was designed to coordinate campus network improvements, innovation, integration and engineering to promote scientific research and education and ensure campuses have the capacity to support it.

The Quilt’s 2020 Virtual Campus Cyberinfrastructure Program Seminar Series

Seminar #1: Determining Your Desired Role within Your Community and Submitting a Regional or Planning Grant

Regional Networks play a vital role in our R&E cyberinfrastructure ecosystem, not only from an infrastructure standpoint, but also as a trusted technology expert for member institutions, particularly for under-resourced institutions.  This seminar will introduce regional network organizations on how to enhance their leadership position within their communities by facilitating meaningful engagement with member institutions around the opportunities offered by the NSF CC* program.

Seminar #2: Identification of Scientific Research and Education Application Drivers

A compelling narrative for Campus Science Research and Application Drivers is the foundation of a CC* proposal.  Discovering these drivers and applications are among the most challenging tasks in developing a proposal.  The narrative must include concrete science or engineering research and/or educational interests and components conducted by faculty, researchers, staff or students that would be improved and/or accelerated by infrastructure investments funded through the CC* program.  Each campus participating in a regional proposal must have its own set of applications and drivers.  This seminar will discuss methods for engaging campus faculty, researchers and staff for identifying these drivers.

Seminar #3: Identifying Campus Infrastructure Needs

Identifying strategic cyberinfrastructure resources needed to support a core set of science research and education applications and drivers is a critical component of putting together a responsive proposal. The proposal narrative must include a specific set of cyberinfrastructure infrastructure, technologies or services that will be integrated into the campus or regional network environment in support of the identified science applications and drivers.  Quantitative and qualitative information should be provided to justify the requested infrastructure. This seminar will cover methods for matching cyberinfrastructure and network technologies with science application drivers within the context of current campus or regional network environment; specific technologies that are considered responsive to the proposal; and quantitative or qualitative measures that can be collected in advance of submitting the proposal.

Seminar #4: Develop a CI Plan

Every regional network and campus should have a current cyberinfrastructure plan regardless of interest in participating in the CC* program.  A cyberinfrastructure plan informs a campus or regional infrastructure strategy and helps to prioritize needs and investments.  This seminar will present the important features of a cyberinfrastructure plan for regionals as well as campuses and share ideas on how to overcome challenges in creating plans.

Seminar #5: Campus Compute Components

This program area, new in 2019, promotes a coordinated approach in scientific computing at the campus level.  With 23 awards given to date, this area incentivizes new and shared computing resources at the campus level.  An important aspect of the project is a coordinated approach to multi-campus and national resource sharing. While regional networks themselves are not eligible to submit a Campus Compute grant, they can provide support to member organizations in a manner similar to the Network Infrastructure area grants by helping to identify science and research application drivers or providing connections to regional and national computational resources that could be leveraged.  This seminar will go over the fundamental aspects of a Campus Compute award focusing on matching the campus resources requested to the identified science and application drivers as well as mechanisms for developing a multi-campus and national resource sharing plan.

Seminar #6: Preparing to Submit a Grant

This final seminar is designed to build a general understanding of the grant components and which components can be prepared in advance.  This session is designed for organizations who have not submitted grants previously.