[CIG-ALL] CIG IV: Summary of Special Committee's Report

[Lorraine Hwang]

Sent on behalf of Louis Moresi, Chair, CIG Executive Committee.

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1 October 2020

At the end of July, a special committee appointed by the Executive Committee cast a wide net for input from the geophysics community at large and interested individuals for a new vision and leadership to lead CIG-IV. The Committee asked interested parties to focus on the following points:
 Governance and Structure (single PI versus multiple PIs; centralized or distributed models)
 Education, Training and Outreach (including Diversity, Inclusion and Equity efforts)
 Scientific Mission and Priorities (science drivers; community engagement in setting priorities; prioritizing support of community codes)
 Partnerships with other groups and agencies (including international collaborations and additional funding opportunities).
These are the broad themes that emerged from the received submissions:

The strongest theme across submissions is that CIG-IV should develop a much more comprehensive education and training program, encompassing a variety of forms and these should be well supported formal efforts.

Some examples include: 
Expand tutorials and hackathons with an emphasis on best practices in modeling and software development 
Research experiences for undergraduates with a focus on underrepresented minorities
Development of teaching modules for use in undergraduate and graduate courses
The second strongest theme was the establishment of a formal partnership with a high-performance computing center to provide not only computing allocations but a full modeling workflow. CIG-IV would move away from focusing on solutions of computational forward models to providing a more complete platform for end-to-end modeling and computation, including analysis and post-processing and integration with data both observational and experimental. This partnership would be important for education and training efforts, as well as for diversity and inclusion.

No clear visions emerged regarding centralized vs distributed governance. There was a desire for code development to be driven by scientific questions and community wishes, although the exact form for a decision structure remains less clear. One intriguing model proposed was that of a “field” site focused on a particular problem with the participation of all stakeholders including observationalists, experimentalists and modelers/code developers. There was a great desire for partnerships with other entities (NASA, DOD, DOE, CSDMS, SCEC, Industrial, International).

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We invite you to continue the discussion on the CIG forum (community.geodynamics.org <http://community.geodynamics.org/>). Updates will be posted on the forum as the EC incorporates this report and Workshop feedback in setting the course for CIG IV.



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