We are delighted to welcome Estonia as a member to NeIC. Estonia will now participate on equal footing with the current NeIC members - Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden - and will have a seat at the NeIC Board. Estonia contributes with expertise in fields that are highly interesting for Nordic cooperation on e-infrastructure, and over the last few years there have been several examples of mutually valuable collaboration between Estonia and NeIC partners.
In 2017, the Estonian Scientific Computing Infrastructure (ETAIS) and NeIC signed a Memoramdum of Understanding, MoU, to increase their collaboration. In March 2018, the NeIC Board invited Estonia to be an observer to the NeIC Board and recommended ETAIS to move forward with the application to the Estonian Research Council for funding for NeIC membership. Based on the application from ETAIS, NeIC membership was included in the Estonian Research Infrastructure Roadmap as approved by the Estonian Government in February 2019. Over the past couple of years Estonia has gradually increased its engagement with NeIC. ETAIS and Estonian partners currently participate in several NeIC projects. ETAIS is also a major partner in the EC-funded EOSC-Nordic project which is coordinated by NeIC/NordForsk.
NeIC looks forward to continue the collaboration with Estonia in the years to come.
NeIC is hosted by NordForsk, which provides for and facilitates Nordic cooperation on research and research infrastructure across the Nordic region. NeIC was established in the key area of e-infrastructure in 2012, and its sustainability was consolidated through a Memorandum of Understanding between the five national research councils and NordForsk. NeIC has two major roles. The first role is to assume operational responsibility for the Nordic distributed Tier-1 facility that is part of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) that provides computing and storage for CERN and is used by high energy physicists worldwide. The second is to jointly or collaboratively explore, evaluate, develop and deploy innovative infrastructure services in response to the strategic priorities in the area of e-infrastructure and the needs of the national e-infrastructure providers, their users and selected ESFRI projects of joint Nordic interest. NeIC e-infrastructure projects are collaborations on the building blocks for the future capabilities and NeIC is NordForsk’s main tool to implement the Nordic eScience Action Plan 2.0.
NeIC is at an intersection point between national, Nordic and international strategies.
As a result of NeIC’s activities, Nordic researchers have more open avenues for resources, advanced support, collaborations and scientific advancement.