CoreGRID - European Research Network on Foundations, Software Infrastructures and Applications for large scale distributed, GRID and Peer-to-Peer Technologies – is a Network of Excellence (NoE) aiming on integration of the most excellent teams across Europe. It is a European think tank for Grid technologies. The NoE has 42 partners from 18 countries and is co-funded by a European grant.

CoreGRID aims at strengthening and advancing scientific and technological excellence in the area of Grid and Peer-to-Peer technologies. To achieve this objective, the Network brings together a critical mass of well-established researchers (119 permanent researchers and 165 PhD students) from forty-two institutions who have constructed an ambitious joint programme of activities. This joint programme of activity is structured around six complementary research areas – organised as Virtual Institutes - that have been selected on the basis of their strategic importance, their research challenges and the recognised European expertise to develop next generation Grid middleware, namely:

• Knowledge & Data Management
• Programming Models
• System Architecture
• Grid Information and Monitoring Services
• Resource Management and Scheduling
• Problem Solving Environments, Tools and GRID Systems

To ensure progressive evolution and durable integration, the Network is operated as a European Research Laboratory (known as the CoreGRID Research Laboratory) having the six institutes mapped to the areas that have been identified in the joint programme of activity. The Network is thus committed to set up this Laboratory and to make it internationally recognised and sustainable. It is funded by a European grant assigned to the CoreGRID NoE, for a duration of four years, to cover the integration costs while the network partners cover the expense required to perform the research associated with the joint programme of activities.

Integration is achieved by the joint execution of research projects operated through research groups within the six institutes, the sharing of a common grid testbed for research assessment, the access to a common communication infrastructure to ensure collaboration and dissemination, and a coherent management framework to encourage mobility of researchers, postdoctoral and PhD students. In addition to these classical integration activities, the network has a proactive role to increase the awareness on the topic of trust and security technologies among the network participants.

There are three additional working areas in CoreGRID supporting the six institutes while focussing on for integration, sustainability, and dissemination and the collaboration with other European projects:

• The working area supporting and assuring the Integration
• The working area organising the spreading of excellence
• The working area managing the collaboration with other European projects

Apart from excellence in research and integration CoreGRID is committed to durability and sustainability: a particular challenge of the project is the creation of structures allowing continuation of the work of the virtual institutes even after the funding by the EU has come to an end at month 48. The log-term objective is to create a new European research entity in collaboration with and supported by national funding agencies and industry.

SCAI is substantially contributing to CoreGRID through its department for Bioinformatics:

• Member of the CoreGRID executive committee
• Leading the CoreGRID testbed activities within the integration working area,
• Member of the Virtual Institute on Resource Management and Scheduling, contributing to three tasks of the institute
• Leading the working area for collaboration with other European projects, ; moreover:
• Leading the activity for the creation of the European Grid Roadmap
• Member in the European Grid Standards Co-ordination Group
• Collaboration on the Grid Software Repository of the European projects

In addition to SCAI, the Fraunhofer Institutes FIRST und ITWM are contributing to CoreGRID.