Clemson University is leading a cyberinfrastructure project that has earned a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Office of Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). The federal funding will provide South Carolina institutions with supercomputing capability for collaboration and bridging information and national data resources.

South Carolina and Tennessee will partner to support shared information in research between various universities and national data. The initiative will advance study and understanding of advanced materials and systems biology, two domains where computational science is the driving force. This project will offer research faculty at regional institutions access to national computational data and supercomputing resources, such as application development and deployment, technical support and training.

This grant supplements significant cyberinfrastructure investments by federal, state and private sources in both states made in recent years. Investments include Clemson’s regional optical network (RON) C-Light, the South Carolina Light Rail (SCLR), the MUSC-led Rural Health Care Network (PSPN) and Clemson’s high-performance and grid computing initiatives in South Carolina and Oak Ridge National Laboratories' recent award as National Science Foundation-funded Tier 2 resource center in Tennessee.

The funds will be used to hire research scientists who will facilitate network improvements and the expansion, development and use of software specific to the systems biology and materials disciplines.

Clemson’s chief information officer, James Bottum, is principal investigator for the grant in South Carolina. The project also is led by co-principal investigator Jill Gemmill, executive director of cyberinfrastructure technology integration and deputy director of the Clemson University Cyberinstitute. Thomas Zachariah, deputy director for science and technology at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, leads the effort in Tennessee.

Partner institutions include Clemson University, Claflin University, the College of Charleston, The Citadel, the Medical University of South Carolina, South Carolina State University, the University of South Carolina, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Vanderbilt University and the University of Michigan. The South Carolina Research Authority is the fiscal agent for the project.

“Integrated cyberinfrastructure is essential to research competitiveness and access to high-end resources is often difficult and expensive. Partnership is critical to advancement,” Bottum said. “We believe this partnership between institutions, and the resulting benefits of our collaboration, to be an important step in advancing the competitive position of our state.

“The beauty of technology is its adaptability to all areas of study, supporting any field of expertise across all boundaries. This grant and this project can serve as a model for additional partnerships in other fields.”