UK e-science centre opens

Chancellor Gordon Brown pledged that investment in science would be a priority of the public spending review when he opened the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) based at Edinburgh University.

Mr Brown said e-science opened possibilities of undertaking the most advanced cross-disciplinary research, and he said the government was committed to maintaining the UK's leading role in this area. He praised the NeSC as "a bold, exciting and worthwhile initiative that provides the e-science community with a permanent home where it can share resources, ideas and facilities".

The centre, run jointly by Edinburgh and Glasgow universities, will lead UK e-science. This focuses on the Grid, the next-generation internet, which offers access not only to information but to massive computing power.

Malcolm Atkinson, director of NeSC, said: "The potential of using computers to filter the data and draw attention to things that should be looked at is really important because our modern apparatus can produce far more data than humans can look at. We are moving beyond (multidisciplinary groups) to bigger groups where multiple laboratories collaborate to get enough knowledge, skills and creativity to take on challenges."

The success of e-science would be measured by the extent to which it was taken for granted, he said. "You could have had an exciting demonstration of the internet 20 years ago. Now we just use it. Over five to ten years, I expect it to be the case that (scientists and) students would naturally use e-science techniques, as they naturally use access to databases across the web."

No other country had achieved the same level of national coordination on e-science, Professor Atkinson said. NeSC will work closely with eight regional centres as well as research council central laboratories. A key requirement for funding is working with industry. "We can't work alone," Professor Atkinson said.

The UK was starting "part-way up the ladder" in that it could draw on the experience of the US, which was five years ahead in terms of investment. But Professor Atkinson said the US had concentrated on large computational problems associated with physics and earth sciences, while the UK had decided to promote the Grid "across the board".

Kate Caldwell of Cambridge e-science predicted that a practical benefit would be better patient care. Cambridge University, backed by Siemens Medical Solutions and Macmillan Cancer Relief, is working with the West Anglia Cancer Network to allow teams of cancer experts to hold videoconferences through the Grid. Very high-quality images would allow specialists to help make diagnoses and discuss treatment wherever they were.