Bms-af:meeting/2014-05-20-f2f

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Constituting meeting of the NeIC BMS advisory forum

Time: 2014-05-20 17:30-19:00

Venue: Meeting room Saunakapinetti at the Sokos Hotel Helsinki, close to the EGI community forum.

Approved: 2014-05-30

Present:

  • Tommi Nyrönen (FI).
  • Inge Jonassen (NO).
  • Bengt Persson (SE).
  • Peter Løngreen, on delegation with full authority and responsibilities from Søren Brunak (DK).
  • Joel Hedlund (NeIC BMS coordinator, secretary)
  • Gudmund Høst (NeIC director, observer)

Agenda

BMS AF 14-1. Approval of agenda
BMS AF 14-2. The role of the BMS advisory forum
BMS AF 14-3. Interaction formats
BMS AF 14-4. NeIC BMS stakeholder engagement
BMS AF 14-5. Assessment of letters of interest
BMS AF 14-6. Brainstorming session: How should NeIC BMS get new projects in?
BMS AF 14-7. NeIC BMS strategy 2016-20
BMS AF 14-8. Assessment of proposed projects
BMS AF 14-9. Next meetings
BMS AF 14-10. AOB

Minutes

BMS AF 14-1. Approval of agenda

The chairperson of the AF is elected for one year at a time and the duty is rotating between countries (DK, FI, IS, NO, SE).

BMS coordinator's proposal:

  • The AF chair position is tied to the calendar year, so that the first meeting of the year will be chaired by the next delegate in the rotation.
  • Tommi Nyrönen is elected chairperson for 2014.

The AF is invited to decide on the period of the chair duty, to elect a chairperson for this meeting and period, and to approve the agenda.

Decision

The proposal was accepted. The agenda was approved.

BMS AF 14-2. The role of the BMS advisory forum

The role of the AF is given by the BMS advisory forum terms of reference approved by the NeIC board on 2014-02-28, and attached to the invitation to join the AF.

Furthermore, the NeIC GEN e-infrastructure provider forum (PF) has found it useful to have GEN project leaders join PF meetings to present project end reports, as well as midterm status for larger projects.

BMS coordinator's proposal:

  • The BMS AF invites BMS project leaders to present end reports for NeIC BMS projects, as well as midterm status for larger projects.

The AF is invited to discuss their role, and to decide on the proposal.

Decision

The proposal was accepted. Furthermore, the AF decided to be open to further presentations by project leaders, and decided to invite project leaders for additional status update presentations as necessary.

The AF noted that it is tasked with giving strategic advice pertaining to Nordic BMS, but, being composed of essentially the Nordic ELIXIR heads-of-nodes, can be seen as being biased when addressing specific issues. The AF acknowledges and openly declares this fact, but will nonetheless strive to provide best possible advice according to the terms of reference. To address this situation, the AF:

  • will revisit conflicts of interest as a separate agenda item at the start of future meetings.
  • recommends NeIC to look into possiblities for improving this situation, for example by:
    • extending representation to a wider set of communities, or
    • drafting a white paper on AF activities.

The AF also offered to take the responsibility to coordinate with other Nordic BMS communities, technical and otherwise, and offered to initiate meetings and propose workshops to facilitate this. The AF offered to invite further advisors to future meetings, as necessitated by the items on the agenda.

The AF decided to revisit this agenda point in the next meeting.

BMS AF 14-3. Interaction formats

NeIC currently uses the internal wiki as a collaboration platform, and the external wiki for public dissemination. NeIC also uses SUNET's Adobe Connect meeting rooms for online meetings.

SUNET's Adobe Connect meeting rooms can be made private, via e.g. Kalmar2 authentication or setting a meeting room password.

The internal wiki uses certificate (X509) login only, so in order to get access, a user should have a certificate stored in the browser, and should also send the subject of this certificate to NeIC for registration. Once done, the user can log on to NeIC wikis without password.

The internal wiki could be used to prepare meetings (agenda, meeting documents...) and to comment and agree on draft minutes, while the external wiki could be used to publish approved minutes.

It is however important to note that the internal wiki is readable to all NeIC staff. Thus, in cases where the AF has especially delicate matters to discuss, those materials and draft minutes need to be handled separately. On the other hand, this should not be a common occurrence, and approved minutes will still be made public.

BMS coordinator's proposal:

  • The AF uses physical meetings as the primary mode of interaction.
  • The AF uses SUNET's Adobe Connect meeting rooms for online meetings, which will be called as needed and well in advance.
  • The AF uses NeIC internal wiki as a collaboration platform, and the external wiki for public dissemination.
  • The AF sends their X509 certificate subjects (DN) to NeIC to gain access to these wikis.
  • The AF uses email for internal communication.

The AF is invited to discuss the proposal and the needs for AF online privacy, and decide on suitable interaction formats.

Decision

The AF accepted the proposal, and noted that work to enable Kalmar2 authentication for the NeIC wikis is underway.

BMS AF 14-4. NeIC BMS stakeholder engagement

NeIC BMS is tasked with serving e-infrastructure needs in Nordic BMS, and the AF is tasked with providing strategic guidance within the full range of this area. NeIC BMS currently has very strong connections to the Nordic ELIXIR nodes. NeIC as well as ELIXIR recognizes the need and added value in building strong connections also to other Nordic BMS infrastructures and research communities. This will for example help ensure that:

  • NeIC BMS can address the needs of further BMS communities, for example in new projects for e-infrastructure improvement.
  • NeIC BMS projects can leverage a wider spectrum of competencies to improve the quality of work.

NeIC enters into collaborations with Nordic partners that are e-infrastructure user or provider organizations with national status. However, such collaborations could also aim to add value to other research communities.

Examples of stakeholders that could potentially be served by NeIC BMS:

  • Nordic ELIXIR.
  • Nordic biobank network.
  • Nordic Euro-bioimaging.
  • NORIA-net for Registers.
  • NordForsk NCoE Nordic information for action eScience Centre (NIASC).
  • MaxIV (internationally significant SE synchrotron facility with major applications in bioimaging and structure biology, planned collaboration with DTU).
  • Sequencing communities (SciLifeLab in SE, OUH in NO, ...)
  • INCF (fMRI+MEG facilities available in at least SE and FI).

The AF is invited to comment on and extend the stakeholder list, and to make recommendation as to how NeIC BMS should engage with these stakeholders.

Decision

The AF noted that the Nordic trial alliance should be added to the list of stakeholders that could potentially be served by NeIC BMS, but that it can otherwise be considered complete, considering that BioMedBridges meetings are called by ELIXIR. The AF offered for its delegates to represent NeIC at important national meetings. The AF suggests that NeIC collaboration partners need perhaps not have "national status", but that "national importance" would likely suffice.

BMS AF 14-5. Assessment of letters of interest

N.B: these meeting documents are incomplete, and will be supplemented as materials become available (cf below).

The current call for letters of interest to NeIC closes 2014-05-15. The letters of interest that NeIC hopes to receive will be used as basis for selecting new strategic areas within NeIC, but may also present opportunities for starting new projects within the existing areas.

The call text is available on the NeIC external wiki: Invitation for Letters of Interest

The NeIC executive team has a meeting on 2014-05-16 to select received letters of interest of relevance for the BMS area, and produce a summary document for this AF meeting agenda point.

The AF is invited to read the summary and assess the relevant letters of interest, and to produce a recommendation to the NeIC board as to which could be followed up as new projects within BMS, and which should be followed up by the NeIC board. For those letters of interest that could be followed up as new projects within NeIC BMS, the AF is also invited to recommend a suitable level of NeIC co-funding, according to NeIC policy for activity initiation.

Update

Confidentiality notice: Letters of interest to NeIC are confidential up until the point that they have been reviewed by the NeIC board, at which point they are made public.

On 2014-05-16, when the current call for letters of interest to NeIC had closed, three letters of interest related to BMS had been received. These were sent to the AF delegates on the same day, along with this executive summary, and a notice that the letters are not to be disseminated further, until they have been made public by the NeIC board.

These are the letters related to BMS:

  1. 140515-Scientific-application-as-a-Service-Letter-of-Interest-NeIC-Final.pdf
  2. 140515-Vinter-SNIP-LoI.pdf
  3. 140515-Nyronen-LoI Nordic e-Infrastructure skill and capacity building for biological data analysis.pdf

Letters 1-2 have mostly generic aspects, but has potential opportunities for new BMS activities. Letter 3 has several aspects that could likely be well addressed as new activities within the existing BMS area.

140515-Scientific-application-as-a-Service-Letter-of-Interest-NeIC-Final.pdf

  • This letter mainly concerns utilising cloud technology to provide difficult science codes as a service.
  • Suggests a SE BMS use case in computational systems biology.
  • Does not express strong support from DK and NO.
  • Expressly involves IS.

140515-Vinter-SNIP-LoI.pdf

  • This letter mainly concerns MAX IV e-infrastructure, which will have beam lines for bioimaging and structure biology.
  • Global resource located in SE.

140515-Nyronen-LoI Nordic e-Infrastructure skill and capacity building for biological data analysis.pdf

  • This letter contains several aspects that could be addressed as new activities within the BMS area. For example: Tryggve operations, advanced user support (a.k.a. application support), storage interoperability...
  • Pan-Nordic, except IS.
  • Suggests coordinating Nordic effort in a European context, to lead developments in a way demonstrated for example by the Nordic biobank network.
  • Contains a proposal to build capacity in hardware, which is the responsibility of the national e-infrastructures, and is as such difficult for NeIC to affect.

Decision

Notice of conflict of interests regarding 140515-Nyronen-LoI Nordic e-Infrastructure skill and capacity building for biological data analysis.pdf:
The AF delegates makes note that they are in a position of bias with respect to this letter, as it is authored by the AF delegates themselves in the roles of Nordic ELIXIR heads-of-nodes, along with the ELIXIR director Nicklas Blomberg.

The AF finds all three letters of interest relevant to NeIC BMS, and makes note that none of them cover the full range of the field. The AF makes note that NeIC could support national engagement in international infrastructure efforts, where there is Nordic interest.

The AF makes note that, to the extent that a ranking is useful, the AF ranks the letters of interest thusly (most important first):

  1. 140515-Nyronen-LoI Nordic e-Infrastructure skill and capacity building for biological data analysis.pdf
  2. 140515-Vinter-SNIP-LoI.pdf
  3. 140515-Scientific-application-as-a-Service-Letter-of-Interest-NeIC-Final.pdf

The AF has the following comments to the individual letters:

140515-Nyronen-LoI Nordic e-Infrastructure skill and capacity building for biological data analysis.pdf

This letter of interest proposes to include activities in NeIC strategy for 2016-2020 that are in line with ELIXIR strategy. The proposed activities are complementary to Tryggve and could run on top of it, or alongside it. The proposal addresses populating the skill gap presented by many EGI CF speakers, thus facilitating making better scientific return of earlier investments, by making better use of the data produced by these facilities in the projected BMS data deluge. The proposal is is not limited to bioinformatics.

140515-Vinter-SNIP-LoI.pdf

The proposal addresses big data handling, which has been for a long time successfully handled by NDGF.

140515-Scientific-application-as-a-Service-Letter-of-Interest-NeIC-Final.pdf

The proposed use cases could likely be better handled separately. For example, the BMS case could likely be well addressed within ELIXIR. The proposal does not seem to directly involve the central research groups in the various countries.

BMS AF 14-6. Brainstorming session: How should NeIC BMS get new projects in?

The AF is invited to discuss how NeIC BMS can start new projects serving Nordic BMS communities.

Decision

The AF offers the following recommendations to NeIC:

  • engage with Nordic BMS communities at important national meetings, to spread awareness of what NeIC can add to their activities.
  • open further calls for letters of interest, with directed topics.
  • arrange another dugnad for project proposals; an event where people with good solutions or good problems could network and work on concrete project ideas.
  • create a networking service with very broad scope, to connect people with good ideas for new collaboration (e.g: who are you? what do you need? what do you want to do?).
  • investigate the possibility to fund database administrators (DBAs) for NIASC?
  • consider funding development to expose national tools to a Nordic setting.
  • consider funding development of high-quality training materials to be used in a Nordic setting.
  • consider building a Nordic BMS data office under NeIC/ELIXIR auspices, addressing the observation that while the BMS communities are disparate, the problem of data is common, and there are likely coordination benefits in structuring it.

BMS AF 14-7. NeIC BMS strategy 2016-2020

NeIC has been assigned by the board to draft a strategy document for the period 2016-2020. The current draft for the section relevant to BMS is available on the internal wiki, and accompanies the meeting documents as a separate attachment.

BMS strategy 2016-2020

The AF is invited to discuss and provide comment on the draft for NeIC BMS strategy for 2016-2020.

Decision

The AF made note that the details of this draft had already been addressed in sufficient detail under other points in the agenda. The BMS coordinator agreed to use input from this meeting to produce a new version of the document, to be discussed in a special electonic AF meeting in September.

BMS AF 14-8. Assessment of proposed projects

The AF is tasked with providing strategic assessment of proposed projects within NeIC BMS. The table of potential projects on the NeIC external wiki holds two projects that are proposed to be run within NeIC BMS. NeIC policy for activity initiation is described on the external wiki.

Links to pages and documents on the NeIC external wiki:

For Secure galaxy, the following broad developments have occurred since project directive submission:

  • Definition of deliverables:
    • Knowledge transfer.
    • Meetings.
    • Nordic workshop.
    • Gap analysis of existing services.
    • Report on securing Galaxy.
  • Partners and funding:
    • SE: 2PM (SNIC Cloud project)
    • NO: 1+1PM (UNINETT Sigma/USIT + ELIXIR.no).
    • NeIC: Meetings, travel costs, ~2-3 PM (roughly 30-40% NeIC co-funding level).
  • Current status:
    • NeIC has communicated willingness to co-fund this project, to some degree.
    • Awaiting SNIC approval to use SNIC cloud project funding to co-fund this project.
    • Awaiting updated project directive from partners.

For Bio-cloud for enterprise and academia, the following broad developments have occurred since project directive submission:

  • Project proposal presented to NeIC provider forum (see links above).

The AF is invited to discuss its criteria for evaluation of bottom-up proposals, to reassess the described projects in light of the current situation, and to give advice on NeIC's continued involvement in developing these projects toward launch.

Decision

The AF finds that the project for a bio-cloud for enterprise and academia is the most important of the two proposed projects, and that this project could be launched once the deliverables have been better specified and once there is adequate Nordic participation.

The AF finds that the project for a Nordic secure Galaxy is justifiable to launch with the proposed level of NeIC co-funding.

BMS AF 14-9. Next meetings

The AF should meet 2-4 times yearly.

The following occasions could present suitable opportunities for AF meetings:

  • At ELIXIR Nordic all-hands meeting in October
  • At NeIC all-hands meeting, Lillehammer, 27-30/1 (28/1 being the BMS day)

The AF is invited to propose a suitable meeting schedule for 2014.

Decision

The AF proposes the following meeting schedule:

  • Electronic meeting in September to discuss new draft for NeIC BMS 2016-2020, date to be set by the BMS coordinator.
  • At ELIXIR Nordic all-hands meeting in October, date to be set by Kristoffer Rapacki.
  • At NeIC all-hands meeting, Lillehammer, 27-30/1 (28/1 being the BMS day).
  • At NeIC 2015 Conference, Espoo, Finland, 5-8/5 2015, date to be set by the BMS coordinator, who is also chairman of the programme committee.

Peter Løngreen agreed to ask Kristoffer Rapacki to coordinate setting the October meeting date among the AF delegates, and the BMS coordinator likewise agreed to coordinate setting the September meeting date.

BMS AF 14-10. AOB

Decision

The AF concluded that the meeting had no other business to address.

End of meeting

Attachments

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