As part of the effort of extending the capacity and relevance and of the South African National Compute Grid, we would like to call for expressions of interest to collaborate on the preparation of a proposal to the call of the EU-ACP Science and Technology Programme. This programme is funded from the 33 million euros of the European Development Fund (EDF) and covers 5 thematic areas :
* Health care
* Environmental research
* Energy
* Transport
* Agriculture and agro-industry
* Sustainable trade

The details of this programme can be found at

http://www.ist-africa.org/home/default.asp?page=acpstprog

The types of action which can be implemented in this budget are
1) Support to Co-ordination and networking in applied research
2) Support to Instruments for collaborative research
3) Support to Management of research activities and reinforcement of
research quality

We propose to work together with interested research groups in South Africa to develop a proposal for an action in one of these three axes, in a relevant field of research from one of the 5 above. The organisations involved, apart from your research team would be
* The South African National Grid to provide the computing resources, technical and organisational support for the action
* The GILDA training infrastructure to provide the necessary training for the human capital and software application development
* a relevant research or technology partner within South Africa or abroad which could bring value or experience to the project

The final goal of the action would be to provide the stimulus to your research project to use grid and high-performance computing to dramatically advance the pace and scope of relevant research.

We would be very interested in discussing further any suggestions or proposals. The deadline for the submission of a proposal is the 27th of February 2009.

Looking forward to your input and suggestions,
Bruce Becker (bruce.becker@ca.infn.it)
Co-Ordinator, South African National Grid