CNI has just made what I think will be an important connection with a multi-institutional group called the Ecosystem for Research Networking (ERN) which (among other projects) is developing a platform for the federation and network control of advanced scientific instrumentation. It's being piloted with cyro-electron microscopy. This is really important work that promises to change how core instrumentation facilities are utilized in future. It's very much in the spirt of, and perhaps a complement to, the CMU Cloud Lab program that CNI featured at its December 2021 Member Meeting. I wanted to make sure it was on the radar of the CNI community.

You can find general information about ERN here

https://www.ernrp.org

and the platform and Cryo-EM pilot here

https://www.ernrp.org/cryoem-remote-instrument/

(I urge you to look at some of the links on this page, notably the press release at https://www.osc.edu/press/ecosystem_for_research_networking_develops_platform_for_remote_scientific_instrument_control and the links under "publications")

I very much hope that we'll have a featured session on this work at the Fall 2023 CNI member meeting in Washington DC.

With special thanks to Dana Brunson at Internet2 for connecting me to this work, and Maureen Dougherty at ERN for her help in making this important work more widely know.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNi