With the strong support of the Lilly Endowment and building on its strengths in information technology, Indiana University proposes an ambitious initiative that will make a major contribution towards making Indiana a recognized national leader in research and development in information technology, and more specifically in the field of pervasive computing. The Indiana Pervasive Computing Research Initiative (IPCRES) will build the mechanisms based on this research and development that will contribute to the growth of the information economy in Indiana in terms of graduate retention, high-tech job growth, technology transfer to Indiana business, new company formation and the production of graduates trained in information technology.
The broad strategy of IPCRES will be to:
The goals of economic development and improved employment will be further advanced as the State's workforce benefits from the education and practical training that will be available to students in conjunction with these fundamental IT research activities.
The key strategy that will be pursued in this Initiative is to significantly expand the research and development capabilities in Indiana focussed specifically on areas of information technology fundamental to pervasive computing. These areas will be chosen from the following: in the software technologies area information grids and portals, human-computer interaction, smart devices, network agents, and open software; and in advanced telecommunications high performance networking, wireless and mobile computing, telecommunications convergence, security and privacy, and distributed storage.
This will be done by establishing at Indiana University approximately six world-class research laboratories in these areas. These IPCRES Laboratories will be headed by researchers of international standing called Distinguished Scientists who would attract highly talented young staff and graduate students. These Laboratories will be of substantial size, well equipped and provided with excellent space. As part of the IPCRES economic development strategy, an important consideration in choosing Distinguished Scientists to head IPCRES Laboratories will be their involvement in the commercialization of their research through product development with industry or start-up companies.
The resources provided by this proposal will make a major contribution to providing an outstanding environment that will help attract researchers of this quality to Indiana. Researchers of the caliber required to be a Distinguished Scientist are in great demand and the successful identification and recruitment of appropriate people will in turn determine the final areas in which the IPCRES Laboratories are established. Special attention will be paid to attracting back to Indiana to head and work in these laboratories, researchers who are natives of Indiana or graduates of the State's research universities. The possibility of involving Purdue University in some of these laboratories will be actively explored.
Discussions concerning the establishment of one of the Advanced Telecommunications Laboratories in collaboration with Purdue's CERIAS Center have already begun.
The IPCRES Laboratories will be geographically located so as to leverage Indiana University's information technology strategy and its academic strengths in this field. IUPUI is being established as the center of IU's extensive telecommunications infrastructure and IU Bloomington (IUB) is the center of IU's computation and information infrastructure. This leverages the strengths of both locations both internal and external to the University. Making IUPUI the center of gravity of IU's telecommunications networks leverages the increasing importance of Indianapolis as a national telecommunications hub and major fiber crossroads; it is where the Network Operation Center (NOC) for Internet2 and a number of major international research networks are based. Making IUB the center of gravity of computation and information leverages the fact that most of the computationally and data-intensive software technologies research groups at IU are located at IUB.
About half the IPCRES Laboratories will be established at IUPUI in areas of advanced telecommunications research that underpin pervasive computing. About half will be established at IUB in the development of computationally and data-intensive software technologies for pervasive computing.
There are wide-ranging economic development opportunities associated with pervasive computing. These include the generation of new industry and commerce, far beyond the limits of today's "dot.com"s for example, innovative, high-tech businesses offering autonomous, ubiquitous, and intelligent network services will be developed that vastly exceed the simple catalog sales model of "home shopping" on the Web. Other opportunities will include a revolution in manufacturing practice and the application of technology, advances in public safety and healthcare, applications of technology to crisis management, the use of computing and communications for training and lifelong education, and new approaches to remote collaboration/conferencing.
The core elements of the economic development strategy of IPCRES are to:
The IPCRES Laboratories will be central to this strategy. IPCRES will establish an Economic Development Office. The Director of this will be Bill Stephan, currently the Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Indianapolis, and who has been recently appointed as a Special Assistant to the IU President and an Assistant Vice President in the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology and CIO. The IPCRES Economic Development Office will develop a program to pursue the IPCRES economic development strategy.
This program will build on the technology developments and scientific discoveries of IPCRES Laboratories, promoting the creation of new businesses and the renewal of existing ones. They will also build on Indiana University's major involvement in national and international developments in telecommunications and systems that will underpin the pervasive computing environment of the future. IU is home to a number of world-class research programs in these areas, is centrally involved in Internet2 and a number of major international research networks, and has strong relationships with a such leading information technology companies as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Cisco. All this, when combined with the other strengths and advantages of Indiana University and the State of Indiana, will establish the critical mass of education, research, and business development activities needed for the State to more extensively participate in and benefit from the IT-based economic growth that is taking place across the nation.
The close connection between great centers of research and the prosperity of adjacent information industries is now widely acknowledged. Elsewhere in the country, some states are aggressively leveraging and building on the strengths of their research universities and other research concentrations as engines of economic development and growth. The Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), for example, was established as a strategic partnership among Georgia's universities, the business community, and State government. GRA works to increase technology-business formation by creating slots at Georgia's research universities for some of the world's most eminent scientists and engineers, supporting them with the resources and mechanisms that promote the rapid transfer of new technology to private enterprise.
By providing high-quality business development services and an enlightened approach to managing intellectual property and building industrial partnerships, IPCRES can provide an atmosphere where new technologies can be quickly transferred into new industries. By establishing a program of research and educational exchanges with established Indiana companies, it is possible to work directly with these partners to test and integrate new technologies into their operations. For IPCRES, these exchanges provide valuable, real-world laboratories for testing new ideas. For the partner companies, the technology infusion that results from this type of interaction cannot be achieved in any other way.
These strategies are further developed in Section 7.
The Advanced Research and Technology Institute (ARTI) is an integral partner in IPCRES' effort to support economic development and promote commercialization of information technology. ARTI will partner with the IPCRES Economic Development Office and the School of Informatics to develop a broad technology transfer assistance program that includes top-flight graduate students from Informatics and a number of other appropriate IU schools and departments. ARTI will also support intern and part-time graduate student programs that transfer new IPCRES research technology to our established business partners. ARTI will develop and conduct seminars and training programs for IU researchers and inventors to teach them the skills needed to prepare patent and trademark disclosures. In addition, ARTI will assist in the technology licensing process and help create new high technology business opportunities through the services of a recognized, experienced and highly qualified information technology transfer officer. Finally, in order to help move exciting new information technology into the marketplace, ARTI proposes the creation of an IPCRES Capital Seed Fund to provide early stage financing for promising technology successfully developed through IPCRES and elsewhere.
IPCRES will develop a program of information technology research that builds on the existing strengths of Indiana University, and which can contribute to economic growth and business development in the State of Indiana. These are its highest priorities. In developing its plans, IPCRES has also referred to the report of President Clinton's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) and has considered the Initiative's priorities in light of the national research priority areas identified there.
PITAC has developed a powerful and well-reasoned argument in support of a national research agenda devoted to advances in information technology. Consistent with many other national studies, this committee observes that information technology will be one of the key factors driving progress in the 21st century, not only in business development and economic growth, but also in areas of education, communication, health care, the environment, and government. The report notes that many of today's technologies and information tools are the result of IT research conducted jointly by universities, businesses, and the federal government, and that future prosperity and progress will depend on continued investment in information technology research. (Information Technology Research: Investing in Our Future, Report of President Clinton's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), February 1999.)
The primary purpose of the PITAC report is to outline a national research agenda for information technology. But the committee has identified what are, in fact, the most critical areas of information technology research for all sectors, public and private, and so provides a roadmap to universities and others planning to invest in IT research and development. Four broad areas of information technology research are recommended, which together form the basis for the development in the next century of a world in which computing is pervasive. These are: software and distributed systems, networks and a scalable information infrastructure, high performance computing, and the socioeconomic impact of information technology.
By design, IPCRES' plans are aligned with a number of key aspects of this national research agenda. IPCRES research builds on the existing strengths of Indiana University, and has the potential to contribute to economic growth and business development in the State of Indiana. These are its highest priorities. But in developing its plans, IPCRES is also aligning its own priorities with several of the high priority research areas identified in the PITAC report, emphasizing research in software technologies and advanced telecommunications that are fundamental to pervasive computing.
There are other, specific benefits to IPCRES and the State of Indiana that will come from aligning the Initiative's plans with this national agenda. For example, it has been proposed that by FY2004, the federal government should invest more than $1.37 billion annually in new funds for IT research and development. This creates a major opportunity to leverage investments made by IU and the Lilly Endowment in pervasive computing research as a means to attract future additional research funding. Also, the alignment of the research interests of IPCRES with those of others across the US will lead to synergies and new collaborations between the scientists and laboratories of IPCRES and other research groups and projects, as they pursue related goals.
Properly timed, Indiana University and IPCRES can become a national leader in the renewal of information technology research in the US, a position that would further raise the profile and prestige of IU and the State of Indiana, increasing the attraction for business development, economic growth, and new employment.
IPCRES will be a unique initiative, unlike any other in Indiana or elsewhere in the US. Only a small number of universities and centers have organized themselves to build leading edge information technology research, and to use this research investment to drive economic development. Of those few that have, none have yet organized themselves to address the essential and integrated set of research questions that underlie pervasive computing.
The central strategy for IPCRES will be to leverage the intellectual and economic benefits of having an affiliated group of leading edge research laboratories, combined in a single organization, studying a related cluster of pervasive computing technologies that are essential to the 21st century information economy. This strategy will depend upon making a sizeable and sustained investment in basic research in pervasive computing, and will include recruitment of Distinguished Scientists of international standing together with talented young researchers and students to form these laboratories. In order to attract the best people, IPCRES must provide the best environment for research and the best intellectual property policies they can find anywhere.
What will further set IPCRES apart will be the integration of fundamental research in information technology with four additional and essential elements. First, IPCRES will address local and State needs for information technology, placing local interests in the context of a national research effort. Second, IPCRES will combine fundamental research with applied research and development, seeking to move advances in IT from the laboratory and make them part of everyday life. Third, IPCRES will be a teaching facility for students in any of the several disciplines related to information science, media, and information technology, and especially for students in the newly formed School of Informatics. Fourth, IPCRES will combine advanced IT research with locally-focused business development activities, promoting new business creation, transformation of existing industries, and the attraction of business ventures to the State of Indiana as a leader in information technology.
IPCRES should prove to be a magnet for visiting scholars and other researchers seeking sabbatical support for advanced research in computing systems and networking technologies. By being located in an IPCRES Laboratory, a visiting scholar can establish links to a critical mass of specialists in a highly focused area of research. In addition, the Initiative might be in a position to supplement sabbatical salaries to attract leading researchers by allowing such visitors to spend a full year on leave at IPCRES.
One of the most important ways that IPCRES can attract permanent senior staff is to first attract them as visitors. Such visits allow researchers to discover that the quality of life in Indiana can be very high and enable them to build attachments. To get many of the very best information technologists who are rooted in one of the high-tech centers on the east or the west coast to stay permanently may take several such visits.
It should be noted that the IU School of Music, which is ranked 1st in the nation, was built this way. When the School was started, the best faculty were wanted, but people of this standing needed to see an advantage to moving to Indiana. By allowing them a flexible association with the University, the School was able to recruit the people in the greatest public demand. With even a part-time association with the University, these faculty members attracted excellent students. The presence of excellent students, in turn, convinced the faculty to stay permanently with the University.
Quality of life and intellectual excitement are necessary but not sufficient to attract and retain senior research staff at IPCRES. These need to be accompanied by competitive salary. One strategy that might be evaluated is a private practice plan (PPP) for IPCRES faculty researchers. Under PPP, a percentage of the contractual income IPCRES brings from industry will be returned to faculty over and above their salaries. This arrangement would provide academic researchers with overall compensation more nearly comparable to their industry counterparts.
Indiana University is already closely tied with other information technology research laboratories. It is part of the NSF NCSAAlliance and is working with NCSAon a number of projects. It is also working closely with a number of government research laboratories with substantial advanced information technology activities. These include the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, the Advanced Computing Laboratory at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Center for Advanced Scientific Computation at Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory and the Numerical Advanced Simulation Division of NASAAmes Research Laboratory. IU also has close ties to the Center for Computing Research at Caltech and the San Diego Supercomputing Center. In addition, through its networking activities, the University has strong ties to many research centers in Asia and Europe.
The establishment of IPCRES will enable IU and the State of Indiana to build on its extensive list of research laboratory affiliations and extend them to include formal links to important corporate R&D facilities like those of Microsoft Research, Lucent, Bell Laboratories, NEC Research, IBM Research and others. While IPCRES will be based in Indiana, it will need to remain in close contact with the leading R&D facilities around the world, and will benefit from IU's existing strong relationships with computer industry companies mentioned above, all of whom see the future in terms of pervasive computing. By attracting visits and exchanges with these corporate research centers, IPCRES will also attract research scientists willing to spend more time in Indiana. An important goal is to open an attractive pathway for talented people in other technology centers around the country to return or relocate to Indiana.
4. Information Technology and Indiana University | Table of contents | 6. The Research and Development Agenda of IPCRES
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