1. S4 will be a “big” Collaboration:
> 100’s of scientists, postdocs and students, from 10’s of institutions institutions in multiple countries (plus potential External Collaborators)
Funding from DOE, NSF, Universities, non-US Funding agencies

2. One example: DES Early Days big picture
John Peoples Director (had been director of Fermilab and SDSS)
John with input from FNAL, NCSA, NOAO management drafted a “Big MOU” that spelled out the roles and responsibilities within the collaboration
Representatives from each Institution or consortia
Project Director and MC are the oversight for the “Collaboration”: science plus technical
Science Committee Chairs were essentially the Spokespeople, developed Science case, setup SWG
Director was primary contact with agencies for the collaboration. As PM I had parallel agency contact for the project
DOE
NSF/NOAO
NSF

3. DES operations and science analysis org chart
Exec. Comm. for faster response than MC

4. Collecting early funding is critical for project development
Institutional membership and contributions reviewed and evaluated
This step involves flexibility and creativity on the part of the collaboration leadership to help each institution figure out how they can contribute in meaningful ways
Needs to be sensitive to differences in funding policies/expectations of various agencies
This is an ongoing process: Need to build a team large enough to carry out the project, do analysis
Institutional contributions (in-kind and cash!) early in a project can make a huge impact in getting it started, flexibility is important
Need to have clear roles and team in place by CD-2 (baseline cost schedule and scope established) (DESI received CD-2 approval at the end of 2015: ~56M$ construction project + ~ 20M$ non-federal funds )
Publication policy drafted, circulated, revised and accepted after project was established: took about a year, all of 2016, about the time of CD-3

5. DESI Experiment Organization

6. DESI Collaboration
DESI Project

7. DESI Details Directorate Institutional Board Project director
Spokesperson – elected by the institutional board
Executive council – up to 9 chosen by director
Institutional Board
Full member institutions – appoint 1 member to IB
Associate member institutions – appoint 1 IB member if they have more than 3 active participants
Member at large to represent institutions with less than 3 participants

9. Example of a possible S4 Collaboration org chart from CDT Report

10. Lots of choices Key points
The “collaboration” defines its own structure by establishing by-laws, policies for membership, publications, expectations for contributions of effort and funding etc. and these will reflect the views and culture of the people and groups involved
Flexibility is critical:
Different organizational structures will be needed at different times (project vs operations)
Will likely need to add collaborators over a multi-year time frame and in response to funding and manpower needs, as the project develops and even during operations
Sources of Funding need to be reflected in the collaboration organizational structure
NSF/DOE/Others expect leadership and control of a significant piece in return for funding
They also expect some sort of overarching coordination between the separate pieces
Big projects take years but postdocs and students have shorter time scales, collaboration policies need to address this: plan for transitioning to different institutions within, or not, the existing collaboration, data rights and recognition within the collaboration etc.

11. A few comments about Money
Funding comes in many different ways: be receptive to all of them!
Project Construction funding
DOE R&D and Critical Decision process 413: Usually there is a Single “Lead Lab”
DES – FNAL, DESI-LBL, LSST-SLAC
Project money flows from DOE to that lab and that lab distributes it to collaborators in exchange for work on the project.
NSF-MREFC
There is a PI and lead institution who manages the money and distributes funds via subcontracts to collaborating institutions in exchange for work on the project.
In both cases cost schedule and scope are tracked closely, reported monthly, changes monitored and signed off at increasingly high levels as impact on cost schedule and scope increase
Foreign Partners and In-kind contributions/buy-in
Usually associated with a well defined contribution to the project (e.g building the lenses) in exchange for collaboration membership
Money usually stays in that institution and is managed there but DOE/NSF still monitor progress closely
DOE Research Budget
Funds scientists salaries – DOE expectation is that scientists contribute to projects as well as doing analysis and publishing papers. University proposal success is associated with having well defined critical roles on projects as well as demonstrated scientific leadership
NSF research support – you know better than I do how it works

12. Money flow – A few examples from DES
DOE provided $35M to Fermilab for R&D and construction
Subcontract to OSU for development of online software paid for computing professionals/technicians and hardware. OSU also contributed ~ 2 years of technical support from OSU as part of their “buy-in” to become member of the collaboration
UK (STFC/PPARC) provided funding for the DES Optics: UK leadership led the design/production etc, decided how to spend the money day to day, but progress was tracked in the DOE project
Subcontracts from Fermilab to LBNL for CCD fabrication capitalized on DOE’s and LBNL’s investments in infrastructure and experience at LBNL
Subcontract to Argonne for mechanical engineering and slow controls software capitalized on their expertise