Building Sustainable Digital Research Infrastructure at Imperial

by Dr Andrew Richards (Imperial College London)

Monday 9 Sept 2024, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

WHGA/001 Auditorium

Abstract: 
Research Computing Services (RCS) at Imperial College London is a central IT function tasked with providing and supporting a range of research focussed products to underpin the end to end research lifecycle.

High Performance Computing is a key component of the service provided but today data drives the end-to-end research lifecycle from the creation through analysis to publication. To support this data centric view all aspects of research computing need to evolve and mature to ensure that services and products provided enable and enhance research, not just ensure compliance with often different funding body requirements. This has led RCS to adopt and use the FAIR data principles, for example, to drive the data agenda. To set the ambition for Imperial to support at scale the collection, creation, analysis, retention and publication of data. As a STEMB university research computing demand comes from across the university, from individual researchers, groups and in-house facilities. To an extent the whole university can be envisaged as large, multi-faceted research facility with compute and data challenges like many national and international research facilities.

This talk addresses the challenge in meeting these wide-ranging research needs, the infrastructure developments in place and underway, and the challenge of sustainability from developing the next generation of research technology professionals through to ensuring Imperial meets its net zero target of 2040.

Bio:
Dr Andrew Richards is Director of Research Computing Services.
Dr Richards will help to drive the strategic and operational direction for the continued growth of the central service in collaboration with the academic community. High-performance computing, research software engineering, research data processing, and curation, and cloud computing are an essential and underpinning service for a significant proportion of the research which is at the forefront of Imperial’s mission. 
For more information visit: Research Computing Services web pages.

Dr Richards previous role was Head of Scientific Computing and Data Management for Diamond Light Source Ltd, where he was responsible for the research and experimental IT infrastructure across Diamond and is involved in both internal and external research activities such as the EU funded ExPANDS project and acting as an advisor for the European Spallation Source (ESS) IT infrastructure.

After achieving his PhD in Structural Geology at the University of Keele, and a period collaborating with the oil and gas industry in the development of new software algorithms, Dr Richards moved to the then CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory as a software engineer in grid computing. From 2004 to 2010 he developed and led various grid-related projects, including acting as the Executive Director for the UK National Grid Service.

He was also involved in several EU FP6 and FP7 projects (including the EGEE and EGI Design study projects) related to e-infrastructure development. In 2010 he moved to University College London to develop the inaugural research data service, before moving to the University of Oxford in 2011 where he headed up the universities’ central HPC service.