e-infrastructure

What is e-infrastructure?
-    it refers to a combination of different IT resources, tools and services, such as computer networks, systems and scientific databases;
-    completely new concept in collaborative research and use of different resources, regardless of the access point;
-    the idea is to establish global virtual research community;
-    it should serve to the European socio-economic advancement.

The development of the e Infrastructure has reached the level which was inconceivable until only ten years ago. National research and education networks were interconnected with 10Gbps optical connections – in this way pan-european GEANT network (consisting of more than 10.000 research and educational institutions and 50 million users) was established.
During past decade RCUB was representing Serbian academic community in number of eInfrastructure projects and incentives, enabling high quality of scientific work/research and the development of ICT technologies (both in Serbia and SEE). Among others, European vision of gradual and deliberate enlargement was supported and brain drain process was decreased in this way.
During the first half of the past decade within the frameworks of SEEREN and SEE-GRID projects first regional network infrastructure was formed and it was connected both with GEANT network and European Grid infrastructure.  State-of-the-art technologies and services became available to regional scientific and educational community. SEE segment of paneurpean GEANT nework was established through SEEREN project; regional NRENs were successfully connected and networked. Grid activities in the region had successfully passed through several developmental phases: from demonstration of the basic principles (SEE-GRID 1), tuning of Grid operations (SEE – GRID 2), to establishment of long-lasting and sustainable pan-european hierarchical model of organization of Grid activities in imitation of GEANT scheme. From 2008 – 2010 through so called SEE-GRID-SCI project an access to eInfrastructure for regional research communities was enabled. Within the framework of SEERA-EI project the dialogue between 10 regional ministries on common politics, strategy and financial planning of eInfrastructures has been established. Finally, through HP-SEE project highly developed computing infrastructure was obtained.
Generally speaking, through these projects and incentives millions of users from research and educational communities were interconnected, thus directly supporting so called Digital Agenda  of the European Commission.
Regional infrastructures formed within the framework of above mentioned projects has supported Serbian IT sector and has significantly improved research in a number of scientific areas, in this way contributing to technological development of the society. Local researchers had the opportunity to cooperate with partners from all of Europe and world. Moreover, the platform for cross-border cooperation has been established. Different scientific disciplines were covered, and hundreds of projects were supported.
Inclusion in the GEANT program, access to the EGEE grid network and the availability of repositories of scientific data allowed the researchers to meet big and complex challenges in various areas, and it was crucial to prevent further "brain drain" and retention of IT professionals, and academics in the country.
e-Infrastructures are therefore of crucial importance when it comes to research, education and innovation, as they allow to connect to a wider network and advanced IT services, be it in the country or abroad.
Over the years RCUB played a key role in bridging the technological divide and facilitate international cooperation in many fields of science. In this way RCUB decisively contributed to the inclusion of the local research community in the expanding European Research Area (ERA).