Scientific Customer Panel

CSC receives regular feedback on its services for research through the Scientific Customer Panel. Convening four times a year, the panel plays an important role in the development of CSC's services. The panel tasks also include scientific evaluation of Grand Challenge and DECI applications.

Read more about the terms of reference, membership and the panel's ways of working.

Terms of Reference

The main purpose of the panel is to promote research by:

• Provide CSC with customer input,
• Perform scientific evaluation of predefined applications (currently CSC Grand Challenge and DECI applications),
• Give suggestions on how resources should best be allocated,
• Inform CSC about upcoming trends in research that should be taken into account when developing CSC's services,
• Give an evaluation of CSC's services from the customer point of view to the Scientific collaboration forum (set by Ministry of culture and education (OKM) to steer OKM in buying services for scientific computing).

Membership

• The number of members in the panel is 8-10.
• CSC appoints the new members. The panelists are encouraged to suggest successors. The panel should represent extensively the fields of science using CSC services. Panel composition should also have one representative from new / emerging user communities and preferably one representative from the Scientific collaboration forum. The geographical coverage of panel members will be secondary criteria when choosing between candidates.
• The name of the panelists and the discipline they represent are public.
• The panel members elect their chair and vice-chair for a 2-year period. The elected chair should preferably have been a member already for one 2 year shift.
• The term of a member is 2+2 years and they are interleaved in such a way that about one third of the members are replaced every second year.
• CSC does not pay any salary for the members of the advisory board. Reasonable travel expenses to the meetings from members outside of the capital region will be covered.

Ways of working

• The panel has 2-3 annual meetings. The chair should provide a report to CSC within two weeks of the meeting.
• Depending on the calendars the scientific evaluations can also be coordinated by the chair and done outside the actual meetings.
• Customer panel chair should join the Scientific collaboration board meeting where they evaluate CSC services for previous year (January-February).
• The panel handles internally any possible conflict of interest regarding scientific evaluation of Grand challenge and DECI applications.
• The panel might consult external reviewers, if needed.
• The role of the panel is to advice and propose improvements for CSC services, in the end CSC will make the final decision how to implement customer panel recommendations.
• The scientific customer panel can act as a representative for all customers when solving for instance issues related to misuse of CSC's services.