About Us
Roadmap
The consortium has designed a roadmap containing the detailed strategy for the short/medium/long terms and the related implementation actions. This document contains the technical and political organisation, the strategy that we will adopt towards producers of data, users of data and towards other users such as education, Industry, Outreach.”
Executive summary-
Atomic and molecular (A+M) data are of critical importance across a wide range of applications such as astrophysics, atmospheric physics, fusion, environmental sciences, combustion chemistry, health and clinical science including radiotherapy and underpin a range of industries from technological plasmas to lighting. Accordingly in the past decade the wider research community has appreciated the need to collate and make available the A+M data that describes fundamental atomic and molecular processes recognising how access to such data is central to achieving scientific breakthroughs across a range of disciplines. However such increasing demands by the research community for large amounts of A+M data present major challenges to the expert research teams in Europe, the USA, Asia and elsewhere that measure, derive and collate such data as demand outstrips supply. The interface between the producers of A+M data and the wide body of users of that data has therefore been a major bottleneck, slowing discovery and hence slowing economic growth. The VAMDC e-infrastructure (http://www.vamdc.eu), funded by the FP7 “Research Infrastructures – INFRA-2008-1.2.2 – Scientific Data Infrastructures” initiative programme in July 2009 for 42 months (project 239108), was developed to remove this bottleneck by designing/implementing interoperable protocols among a wide range of disparate A+M databases and providing a single portal through which users can access A+M data from those databases whilst providing data providers and compilers a large dissemination platform for their work.
The Objectives and Activities of the “VAMC Consortium” follow from the activities and objectives of the European FP7- VAMDC and SUP@VAMDC projects. The “VAMDC Consortium” pursues the following objectives:
- Cooperating on science and technology for promoting the interoperable exchange of atomic and molecular data within the VAMDC infrastructure
- Developing and promoting a strategy for increasing the impact of the VAMDC infrastructure towards academics, industry, education, public sector
The “VAMDC Consortium” will be involved with the following activities in order to fulfil its objectives:
- Maintenance and Evolution of the VAMDC infrastructure
- Conception and Innovation activities
- Support and Training activities
- Marketing and Communication activities linked to the Consortium’s objectives
- Participation to Projects related to National and International Calls in order to full fill the Consortium’s objectives
- On-demand Service activities
- Quality control of the VAMDC Infrastructure
Those activities concern 4 Divisions:
- Research
- Education
- Industry
- Outreach
The VAMDC e-infrastructure provides on a regular basis upgraded “VAMDC Service Release” which is a combined issue of VAMDC standards for data access, VAMDC nodes, each containing a database and web service following the standards. The current set of nodes is listed in the web portal at http://portal.vamdc.eu/. VAMDC provides software for creating a node and publishing data therein. Software such as client or provider tools are provided at http://vamdc.eu/software and further software developed for clients will be available in the future. Help for users is provided on the web through forums and documents and by email at support@vamdc.eu. The email address may be used for questions on operation, general enquiries about VAMDC or to report problems.