Statement of Need
The PSDI project was initially discussed as part of the EPSRC Large Infrastructure Investments Statement of Need (SoN) call, which was conducted in late 2020 – early 2021. During this SoN exercise a project team from STFC and the University of Southampton developed the outline plan for the PSDI. This included commentary on the ambition of the project and the strategic importance of investment in infrastructure for the physical sciences. This SoN exercise was well supported across the physical sciences community. Contributions and backing from a wide range of projects and initiatives demonstrated a community need and support for such an initiative.
The full text for our large infrastructure SoN can be found linked below:
The Statement of Need confirmed a widespread consensus in the community that investment in research data infrastructure is lagging behind investment in data sources and identifying an urgent need for integration of data and computational infrastructures. It identified four ‘pillars’ of user communities that would benefit from the proposed PSDI.
Pillar 1. Facilities, Institutes and Hubs – significant centralised national facilities and activities that serve a large number of researchers based on a common need.
Pillar 2. National Research Facilities – medium-scale centralised facilities operating at a world leading level to perform research that cannot be addressed in a standard laboratory.
Pillar 3. Computational Initiatives – uniting performing simulations with the communities and tools required to do so.
Pillar 4. Research Institutions, research groups and laboratories – community of institutions
Community Pillars identified in SoN – non exhaustive examples of initiatives within that pillar