CIC Services Barbara Fossum , program coordinator for CIC 's High Performance Computational Science Program, has been offering doughnuts to CIC computational researchers for four months. Her high-performance user list has grown from five to 17 users outside the UIUC campus in the year she has served as program coordinator. Many new users can be traced, she is sure, to SUs allocated to the twelve CIC institutions, each of which receives 21,000 units on an NCSA system to allocate on its campus. The allocations liaisons receive 1,000 SUs, and the other 20,000 are distributed to budding computational researchers. Working together, campus Senior Research Vice Presidents and Chief Information Officers determine the process for making the allocations.
Some campuses hold a research competition, and others review proposals informally.
Fossum uses CIC funding from the Alliance to partially cover training expenses for a member of the PI's research team. CIC provided hotel and registration costs, leaving the relatively nominal travel and meal expenses to the OSU researcher. Although the allocations program has not been in place long enough to see anyone graduate to the Alliance peer-reviewed allocation process, Fossum is optimistic about the program. I hope jump-starting a project by providing easier access to time or by underwriting training will make a difference. EPSCoR , established in 1980 by the National Science Foundation, is a federal and state partnership to help scientists in states that historically have received limited federal funding for research in science and engineering to build better research programs and become more competitive in these areas.