Cyberinfrastructure Software Sustainability and Reusability Workshop

The iPlant Collaborative (iPlant) was funded in February 2008 by NSF as a project to “create a new type of organization – a cyberinfrastructure collaborative for the plant sciences” – that seeks to transform the way plant biologists answer Grand Challenge questions and collaborate in the data-laden and cross-disciplinary research environment in which we now live.

Grand Challenges in the plant sciences are research questions that are currently intractable with conventional approaches. For example: What are the genetics of species range limits? How do we improve crop yield under environmental stress? Which genes and pathways have an effect on ecophysiological behavior of plants? The iPlant Collaborative focuses on using cyberinfrastructure development as one way to resolve such questions.

The iPlant Collaborative would very much like the opportunity to learn from leaders in software sustainability and reusability. As our project moves forward, these issues must be addressed from the beginning of our software and data life cycles.