The Pacific Research Platform (PRP) held a Capstone Symposium — PRP: Its Legacy and Promise — on Zoom, June 22, 2021, from 9:00am – 12 noon PDT. Larry Smarr, PRP Principal Investigator, presented the keynote, followed by three panels with a variety of speakers representing science domains, advanced technologies, research facilitators, and ideas for future directions.
PRP was first funded six years ago, and this Symposium reflected on its accomplishments and contributions over the years. PRP was initially conceived to coordinate the tight integration of academic and Federal research networks on the U.S. west coast with the CENIC regional network, as a proof of concept for how limitations of space and time could be erased, and large-scale datasets delivered to end users in labs and campus offices throughout the Pacific Rim.
Today, the PRP concept has expanded to encompass a National Research Platform, regional Research Platforms worldwide, and the Global Research Platform. As important as technological advancements have been, equally significant are the professional relationships, field-building development for science engagement and research facilitation, and domain-specific discoveries that PRP helped facilitate.
As the PRP’s initial six-year run concludes in 2021, this Symposium recapped innovations and advancements enabled by the projects’ leaders and partners. University of California, Berkeley, organized the event as part of its PRP outreach activities.
The PRP Symposium agenda, speaker biographies, presentation slide decks and Zoom recording are available on the PRP website.
PRP is supported by its members institutions and the United States National Science Foundation through the NSF awards CNS-1456638, CNS-1730158, ACI-1540112, ACI-1541349, and OAC-1826967.