SciencePAD Incubation Laboratory Alberto Di Meglio – CERN

SciencePAD Platforms, Applications, Data for Science Collaboration among a number of research centres, research projects and companies Its goals are to investigate: The requirements of scientific communities in terms of software information management The formalization of such information and the integration with other digital objects (publications, people, datasets, etc.) The requirements for long-term preservation and re- use of software especially related to data The prototype a data-driven “Software as a Service” platform for scientific research 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC2

SciencePAD 5 th Goal Technology Transfer and Ideas Incubation Investigate the constraints, conditions and tools required to promote the transfer of ideas and people from academic research to commercial endeavours 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC3

Background SciencePAD (formerly know as ScienceSoft) started as a lightweight investigation in Sep 2011 Involved a number of research and computing projects (EMI, iMarine, StratusLab, OpenAIRE, IGE), infrastructures (EGI, WLCG) and companies (Maat, Sixsquare, SharedObjects, DCore) Asked questions about the issues and challenges in preserving, discovering, accessing software in relation to scientific research 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC4

Critical issues 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC5 Problem areaChallenge descriptionAffected stakeholder groups Difficulty in identifying software and related activities Limited or complex ways of finding what exists already Researchers, software developers Lack of visibility and recognition of development activities Software engineers, developers Difficulty in evaluating software Lack of consistent real usage information and impact assessment Development projects, infrastructure managers, funding bodies Limited access to other users’ experience Researchers, infrastructure managers and operators Difficulty in leveraging existing software through re- use Lack of continuity in development, coordination of software Software engineers, developers, software development projects Lack of continuity in support of software Researchers, research projects Non-optimal communication between users and developers Researchers and software developers, R&D projects, infrastructure managers and operators Difficulty in justifying or proposing business case for development of new software No way of assessing the user “market” and potential revenues SMEs Limited possibilities of influencing the production of software Researchers, infrastructure managers and operators Limited commercial exploitation and support for technology transfer Funding bodies, software engineers, SMEs

Identified areas of work 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC6 Interactivity, shared experiences, evaluation and ratings, collaboration tools, open source Cross-disciplinary activities, citations, industry, incubation, impact assessment Software as a Service, community platforms, scientific results validation, data access preservation, support, consultancy, Software; links to services, people, organizations, publications, datasets Reliable entry points, persistent IDs RegistriesServices Communities Knowledge sharing

SciencePAD Goals 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC7 Software Registries Software Registries

SciencePAD 5 th Goal 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC8 Software Registries Software Registries

Sustainability as the Creation of Value 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC9 Funding Agencies ICT Projects Research Projects Direct selling Support ICT Projects Research Projects Impact on society and industry Technolo gy and skills ICT and Research Projects Industry Value Revenues

Wide collaboration 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC10

Existing experience 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC11 A unique public-private partnership between CERN and leading ICT companies. Its mission is to accelerate the development of cutting-edge solutions to be used by the worldwide LHC community A business incubation scheme launched today will allow UK-based entrepreneurs and small businesses to take ideas from some of the world’s most innovative technologies developed at CERN, and translate them into marketable services and products. Since 1996 our Industry Programme helps industry make the most of advances in bioinformatics and cheminformatics Assists many major companies in developing new materials and industrial processes, in controlling emerging technologies or exploring future avenues of research using the ILL's specialised facilities

Commercial Expertise 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC12 Value assessment and potential for exploitation based on data collected in the Ohloh.net open source registry and the Black Duck KnowledgeBase™ The European Commercial Network Project (ECNet) is a collaboration program between the European Middleware Initiative (EMI, a CERN-coordinated project), SCS Group (Switzerland), the Mitropa Institute (Austria), MID Laboratories, (part of DCore Systems in Switzerland) and leading European research institutions / universities.

Incubation Laboratory 09/04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC13 Software Registry Calls for proposals or direct invitation based on available data Potentially valuable ideas are coached by technical experts, legal experts, venture capital companies A first business plan is produced and presented to investors “First Tuesday”-like events, lightening talks, etc. Direct coaching

Next steps Collect feedback on the idea and its feasibility Start gathering interest from the different parties involved Identify experts in technical, legal, financial and admin aspects of writing business plans (and convince them to join!) Advertise the initiative as soon as the idea becomes viable, hopefully by end of /04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC14

SciencePAD is an initiative by EMI, partially funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement RI /04/2013EGI CF - EMI TC15