Objectives for work package 1 – Policy, impact and sustainability. Governments across Europe have committed substantial funds to scientific grid computing, both through national projects and European initiatives. Scientists are reaping the benefits of this forward-looking investment, as there is an extensive production infrastructure in place, which is relied on by tens of thousands of researchers in many disciplines to produce results, including life sciences, social sciences, astronomy and high energy physics – work that is now being published in prestigious journals such as Nature2. However, this message needs to be reinforced with policy makers who influence the political decision-making process for science at the national and European levels. GridBriefings While projects such as Grid Computing Now! in the UK produced case studies and briefings aimed at UK businesses, there is still a need for reporting at a European and international level that is targeted at policy makers in science and business. In the past, this has represented a substantial gap in grid dissemination, and significant inroads have been made into this area by the GridTalk project’s series of GridBriefings. These short, full-colour policy articles illustrate the scientific results and impacts arising from grid computing, interpreting EC policy documents and reports in an accessible and attractive format. To date, GridBriefings have covered standardisation, the European Grid Initiative Design Study, grids and clouds and women in ICT among other topics and have been distributed to all contributing organisations, the Enabling Grids for E- sciencE dissemination lists and non-European projects including OSG, ThaiGrid and the E-science grid facility for Europe and Latin America (EELA-2). The GridBriefings are timed to coincide with relevant events, such as conferences or the launch of reports. In the first year, more than 40 projects contributed to the production of the briefings, including global projects and initiatives such as the Open Grid Forum, the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, the Green Grid and the fusion project, ITER. The reviewers noted that the project “has made appropriate efforts on issues of importance to the European Commission, such as gender, through eg its GridBriefing on ‘Women in ICT’.” Examples of GridBriefings published during GridTalk With the transition from the EGEE project to EGI and the rise in publicity surrounding cloud computing, it is now more important than ever to keep the achievements supported by European funded e-Infras...
