AccelNet-Implementation: HSF-India - Research Software Networks in Physics

HSF-India will join networks in India to networks in the U.S. and Europe to build the international research software collaborations required to reach the science goals of experimental particle, nuclear and astroparticle physics experiments. Unanswered questions within reach of scientists include the origin of dark matter, properties of the Higgs Boson, the structural makeup of matter, and the mechanism to explain neutrino mass.

These are some of the highest priority science drivers to be addressed by next-generation experimental facilities including the high-luminosity Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at Fermilab and the Electron Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. To fully realize their discovery potential a new generation of software algorithms and approaches is required.

Software is an intellectual product of this research, not just a critical tool. It has become a critical element to design and maximize the physics discovery potential of large data intensive science projects. Building these research software collaborations is challenging and inherently international matching the international nature of the experimental undertakings themselves.

HSF-India will provide U.S. students, postdocs and early career personnel significant experience in international team science through engagement in a diverse research community.

HSF-India will build international collaborative structures to enable innovation in critical software areas for discovery in particle, nuclear and astroparticle physics and lay the foundations for similar international collaborations across the scientific spectrum. It will seed research software collaborations on specific projects across its networks in the U.S., Europe, and India by leveraging an international training network, fellowships, and software-focused researcher exchanges.

HSF-India will iteratively build on these seeds towards a broad and sustainable international research software collaboration with three key research themes: tools and techniques on next-generation analysis approaches, novel simulation techniques, and tools for Open Science. It will focus on opportunities for early-career researchers and establish mentoring and co-mentoring relationships with more senior researchers across the networks.

By engaging with the data-science, artificial intelligence, and broader computer science communities the project will foster bottom-up alliances around research software, for physics and beyond. HSF-India aims to establish an environment where researchers with diverse backgrounds, skill sets and interests can come together and build innovative collaborations that sustain novel tools and techniques while bridging research gaps to enable future scientific facilities.

The Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations (AccelNet) program is designed to accelerate the process of scientific discovery and prepare the next generation of U.S. researchers for multiteam international collaborations. The AccelNet program supports strategic linkages among U.S. research networks and complementary networks abroad that will leverage research and educational resources to tackle grand scientific challenges that require significant coordinated international efforts.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.