2021 Research Infrastructure Advocacy

[Rob Vietzke <>]

Dear Colleagues,

 

We are writing to ask you to participate in an important 90-minute focus group and be a named contributor to a once in a lifetime conversation about the future of research infrastructure. 

 

Recently, the Biden Administration has unveiled an ambitious set of investment priorities for infrastructure that includes a substantial focus on research infrastructure. The package is in a formative stage, and we believe that the research infrastructure community has a generational opportunity to define infrastructure more broadly and in a way that this investment will have a transformative impact on research infrastructure, competitiveness, and inclusivity. 

 

Our hope is that with your direct input, we can craft a broad definition of research infrastructure that tells the story of how people, software, hardware, facilities and sustainability can come together in a 21^st century definition of “infrastructure” that advances American competitiveness, inclusivity, facilities, security and STEM workforce to support research, science and education. 

 

Over the next two weeks, we will be convening a series of focus groups to gain insights from the research and research support community about this vision. We would like to ask you to directly participate in one of these focus groups and ask you to express your vision and needs for a broadly defined set of research infrastructure investments. We have planned seven 90-minute sessions. Once you select a preferred session and a backup time, we will work to sort participants into small and diverse focus groups.

 

Focus group registration link:

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/acaffe1c1fc24c7488a0fdb122f9ced5

 

With the input from the focus groups, we will then craft a roadmap document that can be used in advocacy as the infrastructure package develops in Congress and as related efforts develop in state and local government. Once we have a draft document, we will seek further input from you. Our hope is that this process and the resulting product will allow individual institutions, regional networks, and other partners to align our collective advocacy priorities for research infrastructure in the coming months.

 

Enthusiastically,

 

Louis Fox, President and CEO, CENIC

Tracy Futhey, CIO, Duke University

Jen Leasure, President and CEO, The Quilt

Marla Meehl, Manager:  Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP), UCAR

John O’Brien, President and CEO, EDUCAUSE

Howard Pfeffer, President and CEO, Internet2