Broadening the Reach into Under-Resourced Institutions

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

By John Hicks, Internet2 Research Engagement

Smaller, mid-sized, and under-resourced academic institutions face unique challenges in providing resources needed to effectively support scholars and researchers. Smaller institutions — including Minority Serving Institutions, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Established Program for Stimulate Competitive Research institutions — that have compelling scientific research and education activities often lack the campus cyberinfrastructure (CI) and on-prem resources, funding, and expertise to support these activities. 

To help overcome these obstacles in the northeast US, the Eastern Regional Network (ERN) established a working group to Broaden The Reach (BTR). The ERN BTR working group held a workshop late last year to surface key issues in research engagement in addition to processes for planning and developing research CI at the campus level. The workshop gathered representatives from these smaller institutions to learn about their struggles and challenges and identify ways to help. Although this work focused on the Northeast US, smaller schools across the nation are faced with similar challenges. 

Recent I2 Online Event Helps Bridge the Gap

If you are from an under-resourced institution or want to help bridge this gap, check out the I2 Online event Identifying Cyberinfrastructure Gaps for Under-Resourced Institutions which was held on April 20. During the event, Dr. Forough Ghahramani, associate vice president for research (NJEdge Inc.), and John Hicks (Internet2) discussed findings and observations from this workshop. Some of the issues discussed were:

• Positioning Funding Opportunities, Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) Opportunity
• Campus Cyberinfrastructure and Research Collaborations
• Leveraging Regional and National Resources, Existing Initiatives, and Outreach
• Trends in Research Computing and Data
• Opportunity for Promoting Diversity in Expertise
• Democratizing Access to Cyberinfrastructure Resources

If you are interested in finding out more about how the ERN or the ERN BTR programs could benefit your institution, please visit the ERN website.