NCeSS event

Yesterday, I attended an awareness workshop of the National Centre for e-Social Science. Well attended and well informed, in general. I though that the LSE was well represented. Apart from myself, and that's just for another few months, there was someone from IT, a person from the Library and a guy from CARR. The largest contingent, by far. NCeSS is about the use of the grid, and related middleware (read: software applications) to enable social science research. The meeting was about, ehr, spreading the word. Here it is. Take a look at their website, there are interesting funding opportunities, for researchers at all stages of their careers.

Having been trained as a sceptic, I was eager to ask the so-what question. That is: if you have a research blog, like this, and a wiki, and you post your datasets online, and you're willing and able to use the Library for your data needs, why on earth would you need the grid. After receiving an answer, of sorts, I was persuaded. Possibly, it was the 'Portal', 'one-key access' and 'distributed computing' that convinced me. For now. I'll look into it over the next few weeks.

If anyone is interested in the topic, just drop a line and we can share some thoughts on a coffee.