SLICES-PP
SLICES is a unique initiative in the digital sciences. It aims to provide a large-scale scientific instrument to support research activities addressing issues around the design and management of digital infrastructures. SLICES entered the ESFRI roadmap at the end of 2021, successfully moving from the design phase to the preparation phase. More importantly, the vibrant SLICES community is growing, attracting increasing interest and support from key players in research and industry. SLICES-PP ("preparatory phase") addresses all key issues concerning the legal, financial, and technical issues leading to the establishment of the new SLICES research infrastructure and securing the commitment of the Member States/Associated Countries to its long-term operation and use in all fields of science.
Technological and scientific challenges
Since the objectives of SLICES-PP are multiple, the project is organized into different tasks. First, it is specifying the technical and functional requirements, and then defining the policies and decision-making processes for the governance of SLICES-RI - in particular the legal and financial frameworks, the governance model, the required human resource capacities and the training program. The General Assembly of Partners has just endorsed the status of ERIC - an entity established by decision of the European Commission and with a legal personality and capacity recognized by all EU countries.
SLICES-RI for digital research and industry
Networking, digital and distributed computing technologies are evolving very rapidly and must satisfy a number of constraints: for example, for the Internet of hings, computing efficiently, with the minimum of computational resources and optimizing energy consumption. These technologies use a wide variety of solutions, proposed by a large ecosystem, and encompassing communication, networking, management and data intelligence issues. In order to face these innovation challenges, scientists have massively resorted to experimentation, to test new systems or new architectures. SLICES aims to provide them with the necessary resources to design, experiment, operate and automate the complete life cycle management of digital infrastructures, data, applications and services, and to guarantee the reliability and reproducibility of their experimental results.
ESFRI label and the involvement of European countries
SLICES-RI will become an effective instrument for supporting high-level research and high-tech industry at the European level, and will contribute to industrial competitiveness and the societal impact of digital technology. Responding to the needs of its future users, scientists from the academic world or from the industrial sector linked to research, this future research infrastructure can also be used for teaching and training purposes. SLICES-RI, the first platform dedicated to digital sciences and accredited by ESFRI, will operate for several decades, in conjunction with other international platforms of the same type, and will be designed to integrate future digital innovations.
Future perspectives
The SLICES project has been approved by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), whose objective is to provide Europe with infrastructures that enable innovative and effective research. Involving fifteen European countries to date, it is fully in line with the ESFRI roadmap, which identifies European priorities for investment in research infrastructures, particularly integrated and interconnected ones, and encourages the participation of European states in the development of these infrastructures.
Participants
- Coordinator : INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE EN INFORMATIQUE ET AUTOMATIQUE - INRIA
- SORBONNE UNIVERSITE
- UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM - UvA
- PANEPISTIMIO THESSALIAS - UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY - UTH
- CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE - CNR
- INSTYTUT CHEMII BIOORGANICZNEJ POLSKIEJ AKADEMII NAUK
- UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID - UC3M
- INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICA CENTRUM - IMEC
- UCLAN CYPRUS LIMITED - UCLan Cyprus
- EURECOM GIE - EURECOM
- SZAMITASTECHNIKAI ES AUTOMATIZALASI KUTATOINTEZET - SZTAKI
- CONSORZIO INTERUNIVERSITARIO NAZIONALE PER L'INFORMATICA - CINI
- CONSORZIO NAZIONALE INTERUNIVERSITARIO PER LE TELECOMUNICAZIONI - CNIT
- UNIVERSITE DU LUXEMBOURG - uni.lu
- TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN - TUM
- UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA - UPV/EHU
- KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN - KTH
- OULUN YLIOPISTO - UOULU
- EBOS TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED - eBOS
- SIMULA RESEARCH LABORATORY AS
- CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS - CNRS
- INSTITUT MINES-TELECOM
This project has received funding from the Horizon Europe Framework Programme (2021-2027) under grant agreement no. 101120779