D4Science

D4Science is a European e-Infrastructure project, involving 11 participants and co-funded by the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.

Vision

The D4Science project calls for the realization of scientific e-infrastructures that will remove all heterogeneity, sustainability, scalability, and other technical concerns from the minds of scientists, hide all related complexities from their perception, and enable them to focus on their science and collaborate on common research challenges.

Objectives

The D4Science project aims to continue the path that the GÉANT, EGEE, and DILIGENT projects have initiated towards establishing networking, grid-based, and data-centric e-Infrastructures that accelerate multidisciplinary research by overcoming several crucial barriers that stand in the way, primarily those related to heterogeneity, sustainability and scalability. The main objective of the project is to deploy the e-Infrastructures built so far by EGEE and DILIGENT so that they address the needs of several new scientific communities affiliated with the broad disciplines of Environmental Monitoring and Fisheries and Aquaculture Resources Management.

D4Science and Gender

D4Science adheres to a principle of gender mainstreaming and will strive to:

• Create an inclusive research environment in which both men and women, scientists and administrators can combine family and work, children and career.
• Maintain a philosophy that includes the individual needs of all participants.

D4Science statement on the promotion of gender equality is the following:

The accomplishment of D4Science’s far-reaching objectives is only possible through the motivation and wellbeing of project participants. D4Science will promote a culturally diverse virtual research community wherein women and men with varying needs can be supported in achieving and maintaining a work-life balance.

A few guiding actions are encouraged throughout the D4Science organisation and participating partner organisations:

• Introduction of gender awareness raising activities at the partner level.
• Encouragement and support of a work-family balance for project participants.
• Presentation of D4Science project activities to female students and “early” researchers.

Gender mainstreaming is "ensuring gender equality… giving equal consideration to the life patterns, needs and interests of both women and men. Gender mainstreaming thus includes also changing the working culture," from Women and Science in Europe, EUROPA: http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/women-science/women-science_en.html.

Project participants

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (ISTI-CNR)
Engineering - Ingegneria Informatica - SpA (ENG)
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
European Space Agency (ESA)
GEIE ERCIM (ERCIM)
International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (WorldFish Center)
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA)
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Universität Basel (UNIBASEL)
University of Strathclyde (BDM-USTRATH)
4D SOFT Számítástechnikai Kft (4D SOFT)

External links

• D4Science web site
• D4Science project organisation
• D4Science web site gender statement
• Related technologies: gCube, gCore, gLite
• Related projects: GÉANT, EGEE, DILIGENT