Net-Zero Digital Research Infrastructure Vision and Expertise : Open Workplan

1 Net-Zero Digital Research Infrastructure Vision and Expertise Workplan Martin Juckes and Sarah Sparrow 8th January 2024 2 Executive Summary .................................................................................................................... 4 1. Vision ...................................................................................................................................... 7 Overview .................................................................................................................................... 7 Ambition ................................................................................................................................ 7 Authority and Authenticity ................................................................................................. 8 Advice and Guidance ............................................................................................................ 8 NetDRIVE Themes ................................................................................................................... 8 Machine room and hardware ............................................................................................. 9 Green software engineering ..............................................................................................10 Galvanizing Individual Action ..........................................................................................10 Systemic change ..................................................................................................................10 Project Organization .............................................................................................................. 11 The Core Team ..................................................................................................................... 11 Champions for Sustainable Research Infrastructure ................................................... 12 Network for Transformational Change ........................................................................... 12 Community Activities ......................................................................................................... 12 Lessons from the past and looking to the future .............................................................. 12 Lessons from NetDRIVE Stage 1........................................................................................ 12 Foundations from the scoping study ............................................................................... 13 Sustaining the NetDRIVE activities .................................................................................. 13 2. Approach ...............................................................................................................................14 3 Overview ...................................................................................................................................14 WP1: Leadership and Delivery (core team) .....................................................................14 WP2: Champions for Sustainable Research Computing .............................................. 16 WP3: Network for Transformation Change ................................................................... 16 WP4: Community Activities .............................................................................................. 17 Milestones ................................................................................................................................ 21 First quarter ......................................................................................................................... 21 Up to month 15 ..................................................................................................................... 21 Full Project .......................................................................................................................... 22 3. Governance .......................................................................................................................... 22 NERC Project Board ............................................................................................................... 22 Project Executive Group........................................................................................................ 22 Review Panel ........................................................................................................................... 23 Network General Assembly .................................................................................................. 24 Project Operations Team (POT) ........................................................................................... 24 Community Leadership Team (CLT) .................................................................................. 24 4. Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI) ............................................... 24 5. References ........................................................................................................................... 26 4 Recommended citation: Juckes, M.N., and Sparrow, S., 2025: Net-Zero Digital Research Infrastructure Vision and Expertise (Workplan). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14626648 Executive Summary Net-Zero Digital Research Infrastructure – Vision and Expertise (NetDRIVE) will address the enormous challenges of establishing a sustainable United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) digital research infrastructure (DRI), reversing a growing dependency on rapidly depleting resources. The UKRI DRI plays a critical role in delivering world-leading research and innovation for the UK. Advancing digital technology is transforming research and innovation just as digitization is 5 transforming society. NetDRIVE will channel the momentum of this transformation into sustainable pathways. The carbon footprint of the DRI is diverse, ranging from high performance computing (HPC) to personal laptops, data infrastructure supporting open research to cybersecurity, software and the people using and operating it. This complexity is further increased by transdisciplinarity, highly distributed decision making, and the rapidly expanding role of the DRI. The footprint is modest compared to elements of the physical research infrastructure but nevertheless demands attention. NetDRIVE will deliver immediate and tangible progress, provide confidence in our pathway to sustainability, and demonstrate national and international thought leadership so that the DRI can continue to serve community needs well into the future. The challenges of organisational complexity and rapidly evolving technology will be turned into strengths by exploiting the diversity of the stakeholder community and the agility of the infrastructure. NetDRIVE will recruit a team of Champions for Sustainable Research Computing, convene a Network for Transformational Change, and fund a portfolio of Community Activities. Progress will be measured through community backed metrics, based on both the physical reality of observable quantities, such as power consumption and embedded carbon budgets, and the experienced realities of individuals, such as trust and confidence, in the DRI and the broader academic community. The Champions for Sustainable Research Computing will provide leadership across all aspects of technological advance and community transformation. They will be responsible for condensing and synthesizing outputs from across the project to formulate timely and actionable advice for UKRI and the academic community. The Network for Transformational Change will bring together domain experts, community leaders, visionaries, critics, and the leaders of tomorrow, from inside and outside of academia, to engage in free discourse on emerging questions and challenges for sustainable research computing. The Network will not only be a place to share the latest innovation but will itself become a new coalition to drive cultural transformation. Through embracing a diversity of views and opinions, NetDRIVE will ensure that emerging recommendations and advice have been well tested in an active and representative forum thereby establishing itself as the go-to place for questions on Net Zero DRI priorities and opportunities. 6 Community Activities will address the need for technical innovation and organisational transformation, promote knowledge exchange, and build trust and confidence. Demonstrators and proof-of-concept studies will enable the community to explore and test new ideas, develop best practice guides and community resources, and provide training to empower individuals to realise necessary behavioural change. Working groups and task forces will bring together relevant teams to provide indepth reports on subjects of interest and focus meetings will engage local actors, industry bodies and stakeholders in discussion forums on topical issues. Seizing opportunities to place focus meetings within or alongside existing large community gatherings and conferences will broaden reach and enable synergies to be exploited. 7 1. Vision “The journey to net zero computing requires transformational change which can deliver huge benefits as part of the broader transformation to a new generation of digitally enabled research." (Juckes et al., 2023) Overview Ambition NetDRIVE will deliver a unique and decisive step towards a sustainable United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) digital research infrastructure (DRI) by convening and empowering leaders in ideas and in change from across UKRI. Many carefully planned attempts to constrain growth in resource usage in other organisations have failed despite the best of intentions. We will not only engage with the experts in technology but also with the experts in behaviour who can offer insight into the workings and failings of our decision processes. The heart of the problem here is not the computers. We are the problem ourselves: ourselves and the way in which we use the computers and the power that they give us. NetDRIVE is founded on the belief that we can also be the solution. The escalating impacts of climate change confront us with an existential threat. We are faced not only by loss of life, damage to property, and reductions in food supply, but also by growing divisions in society. Uniting to achieve a transition to sustainability creates many opportunities. The Net Zero DRI Scoping Study (hereafter “the scoping study”) commissioned by NERC and led by the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) encountered and benefitted from the enthusiasm and commitment of many contributors who had a shared goal (Juckes et al, 2023). A wealth of detailed recommendations was provided on topics ranging from individual net zero plans to the supply chain for computer hardware. The recommended actions were split into three delivery pathways: those to be implemented by UKRI, those that require partnership, and those that should be tackled by the community. NetDRIVE is firmly in the partnership element and will work closely with NERC and UKRI to establish how these recommendations can be translated into action. A sense of disempowerment was also identified as a barrier to change across the community. NetDRIVE will work with UKRI, stakeholders and the user communities to achieve 8 clarity on where people can take effective action and how they can be incentivised and motivated to do so. Building on the scoping study, NetDRIVE will: • Deliver immediate and tangible progress to Net Zero DRI through actionable advice to UKRI and the UKRI DRI community. • Provide national and international thought leadership on the transition to sustainable DRI. • Build trust and confidence in our transition to a sustainable DRI by 2040 or sooner. Authority and Authenticity NetDRIVE will develop authority through an open process that welcomes and learns from challenges and the diversity of the NetDRIVE membership. Authenticity is linked to our commitment to deliver on societal goals which go beyond scientific and technological achievements. It is important to understand and be transparent about the boundaries of scientific investigation. Scientific findings about the grave risks that arise from continued emissions of greenhouse gasses motivate net zero goals, but UK and UKRI decisions on the transition away from fossil fuels are based on our values, values that we need to be clear and open about. We believe that the gravity and imminence of the risk posed by climate change to current and future generations demands an immediate and effective response. Advice and Guidance NetDRIVE will deliver actionable advice and guidance to UKRI through consolidated reports and share knowledge across the academic community through a range of engagement activities. The advice and guidance will be backed by a combination of academic rigour and comprehensive community engagement. Knowledge translation planning will ensure that the advice and guidance is not just disseminated but translated into a form that meets stakeholder needs thereby narrowing the gap between research and practice. NetDRIVE Themes NetDRIVE ensures comprehensive coverage by working on four parallel themes (figure 1) which span technical and behavioural aspects of the transformational challenge that we face. Two themes encompass different elements of the technical 9 challenges: one revolving around machine rooms and hardware (including hardware in small server rooms and connected devices such as laptops) and the other around software and algorithms. Another two themes span behavioural issues, one aligned with organisational challenges and the other with personal motivation. There are problems which cut across themes, and the boundaries may be fuzzy, but this approach has proved itself by focussing discussion during stage 1 of NetDRIVE. The four themes are set out in more detail below. Figure 1: The NetDRIVE Themes Machine room and hardware Amazing gains in computational power and capacity are being delivered through advances in technology which also drive increases in complexity of hardware and associated supply chains. We need to bring sustainability to the forefront of the management of our infrastructure. Full and authoritative life cycle analysis of infrastructure will be needed, including effective measurement and management of impacts during the use phase, clear contracts and conditionalities to develop a low carbon supply chain during procurement, and clear end-of-life planning for hardware. Learnings from high end compute can be passed through to lower end community usage. 16 Proposals for Community Projects, Working Groups, Task Forces, and Focus Meetings will include a publishable summary and vision based on pre-registration principles (e.g. Open Science Foundation; Nosek et al., 2018) to promote transparency and openness in research. The publishable summaries will be advertised on the NetDRIVE web site and disseminated through appropriate portals such as the Open Science Foundation. WP2: Champions for Sustainable Research Computing The champions will be appointed through a competitive award process which will be open to all career stages and will be allocated to ensure balanced support is provided for across the four NetDRIVE themes. Early-career champions will be provided with support and mentorship from within the Network enabling them to develop skills necessary to become future leaders. Task 2.1 Advice and Guidance Champions will provide leadership and work collectively with the core team to set the vision and direction for community activities across the NetDRIVE themes and breadth of UKRI activity. Working closely with the community activities to energise, motivate and lead technical review of outputs, and with the network for inspiration and scrutiny, the champions will synthesise and present actionable advice to UKRI and UKRI DRI stakeholders through reports, recommendations, and face to face meetings. They will review knowledge translation plans from community projects. Task 2.2 Outreach, Dissemination and Engagement Champions will play a critical role in presenting NetDRIVE work to stakeholders and the wider UKRI community through engagement in related networks, projects, and institutional activities. WP3: Network for Transformation Change The Network will provide a forum for thought leadership within which creative thinkers from across the spectrum of DRI users and managers can share and develop ideas to deliver the transition to net zero. Network members will bring wisdom and expertise from across the academic community, DRI facilities and external stakeholders. Task 3.1 Network recruitment The Network membership must represent a broad range of expertise and experience with a target membership of 150 people. The envisaged network will be composed of 17 nominated key stakeholders, community members recruited through an open call and invited international domain specialists. By design, the professional, organisational, academic, and geographical diversity of the UKRI DRI community, and the societal diversity, including age, gender, and ethnicity will be represented. Membership will include representation from the private sector as well as from all parts of UKRI. Targeted recruitment activities will be used to mitigate and diversify issues after initial recruitment, with capacity building exercises if needed. In particular stakeholder mapping undertaken as part of the knowledge translation framework along with identification of existing groups and activities (e.g. industry bodies, existing UKRI DRI activities, the Wellcome Trust, and signatories of the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice and endorsers of the Heidelberg Agreement on Environmental Sustainability in Research Funding) will enable targeted calls to action and engagement strategies to be devised to involve these communities with NetDRIVE activities and represent them within the network. Task 3.2 Network delegate activities Through an online discussion forum and monthly drop-in meetings, personal insights will be shared and viewpoints challenged or validated as appropriate. Discussion points will be informed by community activities and emerging questions. Network members will be able to further express their views by participation in working groups, task forces and focus meetings. New partnerships and collaborations will be forged. To promote open and free discussion the Chatham House Rule will apply to all discussions and conflicts of interest clearly declared. During quarterly progress meetings existing discussions will be reviewed and formulated into key learnings and outcomes which will then be formally turned into advice and recommendations during the in-person 2-day Annual General Assembly of the network. WP4: Community Activities Community activities bring responsiveness and promote knowledge exchange across the broad and diverse DRI community. New ideas to realise change will be developed and tested in community projects, in-depth reports on emerging priorities produced by diverse working groups and targeted discussion into topical issues realised through focus groups. Task 4.1: Community Projects Community projects will enable flexible development of new ideas, resources, and guidance. Projects will be provided with funds through open calls and proposals will 18 be evaluated by a review panel based on excellence, fit to objectives, and ability to deliver. Each funded project will produce recommendation or advice and one or more reports on activities undertaken (e.g. technical reports, meeting reports, survey analysis). Community projects will also produce Knowledge Translation Plans (KTPs), devising bespoke calls to action for stakeholders based on their outputs. These KTPs will be reviewed and actioned by the integration lead. Initiation Community Projects Following feedback from the stage 1 consultations, initial community projects are planned for launch in the first quarter: • CP1.1 Training/summer school for DRI users to address a skills gap identified in stage 1 community meetings. This project directly supports NetDRIVE Aim 3, additionally creating a lasting resource of training material for use beyond NetDRIVE and will likely reduce the number of failed simulations going forwards. • CP1.2 Energy savings through tuning hardware configuration to reduce power consumption without affecting throughput on a range of platforms. This project directly supports NetDRIVE Aim 1. • CP1.3 Guide to best practice and existing tools to provide the community with clear and practical advice, empowering individuals by providing them with the necessary information to take action through effective knowledge engagement strategies. Links to the summer school, CP1.1 will be strongly encouraged. This directly supports NetDRIVE Aims 1, 2 and 3 and will support the development of community standards. • CP1.4 Status snapshot on community readiness providing a baseline measure of community usage, readiness, and confidence from which to measure progress. This should include profiling how users from across the full breadth of UKRI typically interact with DRI, their awareness of need to change and how they can act along with what motivates them. This project directly supports NetDRIVE Aims 1 and 3. Two further calls for community projects will be made throughout the course of NetDRIVE to make progress towards the aims and objectives of the project. These calls will be consistent with the pathway to sustainability outlined in the theory-of-change and will be informed by outcomes from the Net Zero DRI Scoping Project, providing a vehicle to support implementation of existing recommendations as well as emerging needs identified by the Network. 19 Task 4.2: Focus Meetings Following the successful stage 1 approach, the flexible fund will support a series of focus meetings for network members. These meetings will be hybrid or online. The hybrid approach will realise the benefits of in-person engagement at a range of locations around the UK. An initial focus meeting will be held in London to engage with the policy community and initiate work on an ethical framework. Focus meetings with stakeholders including industry bodies will be arranged to engage the commercial sector with NetDRIVE activities. Meetings will combine a selection of invited speakers to stimulate discussion, questions and discussion topics posed by the Project Operations Team (see Governance), and breakout sessions to allow all delegates to participate in detailed discussion. Consolidated output from the meetings will be openly published as a NetDRIVE activity report (see Report sub-section below) compliant with the Chatham House Rule. Task 4.3: Working Groups and Task Forces Working groups will provide in-depth reports on topics of interest identified by the Network. These will be openly published as NetDRIVE activity reports. The working group will consist of an elected chair and selected delegates from the network with additional invited experts to fill gaps in diversity or expertise. The chair will be responsible for setting agendas and leading meetings, supported by champions and the core team. Funds will cover meeting expenses and support from the champions and core team. Delegates will be expected to devote several days of time to cover preparation, attendance of meetings and review of outcomes. Task forces will be created for areas that need more detailed investigation and contributions from a range of institutions with a shared interest. Funds will cover meeting expenses and support from the champions and core team. Members will be expected to allocate a regular time commitment (e.g. 1-4 days per month) over an extended period. Initial members will be recruited from the network. Initiation Working Groups Two working groups will be established in the first quarter to deal with critical issues raised in the call and the Stage 1 workshops: sustainability of the NetDRIVE outcomes and monitoring progress. One of these will focus on ethical issues and aspects of 20 workforce well-being, the other will look at practical measures of progress to net zero and potential impact on research throughput. Working Group on Ethics and Sustainable Progress to Net Zero (WGESP) “.... we need to measure the human impact and use this to evaluate how we manage change” (CIPD, 2024) WGESP will develop an ethical framework for transformational change by reviewing existing frameworks for ethics and exploiting survey results to analyse the human impact of changes impacting on the DRI. The WGESP will consist of approximately 10 people who between them will represent the diversity of perspectives and experiences to advise on the full breadth of NetDRIVE activities. Working Group on Monitoring and Reporting (WGMAR) WGMAR will develop a framework for monitoring and reporting on community progress towards net zero implementation, working with the community project funded to run an annual survey. This will provide essential information on the practical success of actions introduced by NetDRIVE in terms of measurable or inferred impact on emissions. WGMAR will also investigate options for monitoring and reporting on the impact of net zero activities on research excellence and throughput. The NetDRIVE aims, objectives and how expected outputs form initial activities map onto them is summarised in figure 4. 21 Figure 4: Mapping initial community activity outputs to aims and objectives Milestones First quarter • Milestone 1: Initiation, including (a) Launch recruitment of Integration Lead; (b) Open registration for policy meeting in London; (c) Open application process for network; (d) agree schedule of round 1 of community project funding. • Milestone 2: First steps (a) Invitation to an online discussion of round 1 of community project funding; (b) Agree terms of WGESP, (c) hold and report on policy meeting, (d) Schedule Oxford focus meeting, (e) Schedule online network meeting Up to month 15 • Milestone 3: Network Initiation: recruiting delegates and convening the first AGM. • Milestone 4: First call for Community Activities and initial progress reports. • Milestone 5: Project Reporting: Including a review of Scoping study roadmap actions and recommendations (conducted with UKRI and the Network), an annual report from the champions, Ethics Guidance for Net Zero DRI, and a budget review. 22 Full Project • Milestone 6 [M25]: Consolidated Report, including review of Community Activities, progress report, survey, and metrics, and sustaining the transformation to net zero. • Milestone 7 [M37]: Consolidated Report, including review of Community Activities, progress report, survey and metrics, and final recommendations. In addition, the co-coordinators and Grant Manager will deliver monthly project updates and an annual finance review to NERC and the programme board. 3. Governance The governance and management bodies are shown in Figure 5 and listed below. NERC Project Board The Project Board convened by NERC will provide general oversight of the project and ensure that it aligns with NERC and UKRO requirements. Project Executive Group The PEG will report on project process to NERC and will be responsible for overall management of the project. The PEG will be made up of the co-coordinators, project manager, integration lead. They will meet weekly and coordinate finalisation of reports to the NERC Project Board. Meetings will be online or in person. Meeting outcomes will be published on an internal project forum and, where appropriate, publicly. Observers may be invited from the champions. In addition to the PEG there will be two autonomous bodies, the Review Panel and the Network AGM, which are empowered to make decisions independently of the PEG, and two subsidiary bodies which will feed into the PEG: the operations team and the community leadership team. Self-monitoring will be reinforced by funding an independent community project to run surveys with metrics of project progress. The PEG will establish a communications strategy to promote partnerships both within and beyond academia. 23 Figure 5: Governance Structure Review Panel A review panel will be established to assess applications for community projects and champion awards. The panel will be chaired by Fergus McDonald (DARE UK/HDR UK). Panel guidance will be developed by the chair and core team. The panel will review proposals and discuss scores in an online meeting. Proposals will be assessed on: • Excellence: Are the proposed activities going to extend our knowledge in surprising and unexpected ways? Are they bringing new creativity to the task? 24 • Fit to Objectives: does the proposed work address the objectives of the NetDRIVE and any additional objectives specified for the call? • Ability to Deliver: is there a well-considered and robust plan to deliver the project on time and on budget? Are costs appropriate? Network General Assembly There will be an annual General Assembly (GA) of the Network at which the network may vote on proposals including resolutions and recommendations to the project or to UKRI. Proposals for discussion and voting should be circulated two weeks ahead of a GA. If needed, an exceptional GA may be called with 4-weeks' notice and held online. Project Operations Team (POT) The POT, made up of champions, core team, and nominated representatives from the network, will meet monthly. The POT will review project risks and review the outputs of community projects. Community Leadership Team (CLT) Leaders of community activities and delegates from the network will meet to promote knowledge exchange between community activities, recommend new community activities and build community engagement as well as synthesise cross community activity for inclusion in recommendations and reports. This group will work with the integration lead to generate tailored messages and calls to action for specific stakeholders following knowledge translation planning. The CLT will meet with the POT quarterly to exchange and monitor progress towards aims and objectives through the theory-of-change and share knowledge translation plans for project outputs. 4. Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI) The NetDRIVE Terms of Reference (ToR) will set out expectations for members, covering conflicts of interest, confidentiality, and the Chatham House Rule for Network meetings. Under the Chatham House Rule participants will be free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. This will facilitate open and effective discussion of sensitive topics. Some meetings may be confidential if there are specific requirements from UKRI or other stakeholders. 25 Data protection will follow Oxford University policy. NetDRIVE members will be required to declare any personal, private, or commercial interests that might conflict with their ability to provide impartial advice at the earliest opportunity. Once declared, appropriate action will be agreed with the core team and Network co-chairs. This may include withdrawal from any discussion of topics in which they have such an interest. All business of the Network will be guided by UKRI’s policy on Conflict of Interests as written into the ToR. Members shall agree to act honestly, with integrity and conduct themselves in accordance with the UKRI code of conduct detailed in the Conflicts of Interest policy, which is underpinned by the Seven Principles of Public Life. Annual recruitment of network members via an open call will follow a clear and transparent process. The Network membership must represent a broad range of expertise and experience and collectively meet the diversity requirements laid out in stage 1 which include protected characteristics and additional requirements imposed to enhance representivity (see Approach, Task 3.1). The Grant Manager will anonymise, monitor and report on diversity and community metrics for Network events. Mitigation actions will be formulated and discussed with the co-coordinators. To build transparency, trust and authority the WGMAR will monitor both community progress towards net zero implementation and the NetDRIVE project carbon footprint. Stage 1 consultations reinforced the importance of ethical and RRI protocols and practices related to the DRI. The WGESP will support the DRI community by producing open access guidance documentation and a governance framework that incorporates (Leslie, 2019): • The impacts of new DRI policies on affected stakeholders and user communities. • The fairness of DRI changes, i.e. how individuals, social groups and communities may be discriminated against following adoption of recommendations and how these can be mitigated against. • The trustworthiness of DRI changes where the safety, accuracy, reliability, security, and robustness have been considered. • How justifiable the DRI changes are, by promoting transparency and interpretability of decisions and behaviours associated with the proposed changes.