The Collaborative Computational Projects (CCPs) bring together leading UK expertise in key fields of computational research to tackle large-scale scientific software development, maintenance and distribution. Each project represents many years of intellectual and financial investment. The aim is to capitalise on this investment by encouraging widespread and long term use of the software, and by fostering new initiatives such as High End Computing consortia.
The CCPs enrich UK computational science and engineering research in various ways. They provide a software infrastructure on which important individual research projects can be built. They support both the R&D and exploitation phases of computational research projects. They ensure the development of software which makes optimum use of the whole range of hardware available to the scientific community, from the desktop to the most powerful national supercomputing facilities. The training activities of CCPs have been outstandingly successful, benefiting several hundred students and post-doctorates each year.
The main activities of the CCPs are to:
- Carry out flagship code development projects
- Maintain and distribute code libraries
Flagship projects represent innovative software developments at the leading edge of a CCP.s area of science or engineering. They normally last for three years and may support a PDRA associated with the project. At the end of a flagship project, the resulting software usually becomes part of the code library. CCPs maintain, distribute and develop the new code according to demand from member and user research programmes.
The collaborative approach makes the community almost uniquely able to adapt and respond to developments in computer science, information technology and hardware. One of the strengths of the scheme is that the focus of each CCP has evolved to maintain international scientific topicality and leadership within its community. The CCPs are increasingly represented in science and engineering as advances in computational techniques and hardware make it feasible to tackle problems of real practical significance.
CCPs have a high profile overseas. Many have links with European networks or programmes. The CCP Steering Panel includes international scientists. CCPs also provide opportunities for links with foreign institutions and scientists. CCPs maintain high visibility to industrial researchers by publicising their software, meetings, training and other activities, and by including industrial members on Working Groups and on the Steering Panel. The CCPs are funded competitively through regular Research Council grants. Since 1978, they have also benefited from support by staff at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, funded via an agreement with the Research Councils. Such staff provide expert technical and administrative support, perform many of the functions outlined above, and are frequently involved in large-scale program development projects.