CC* CIRA: Nevada Vision for a co-Developed Impactful Cyberinfrastructure Ecosystem (NV-DICE)

Technology for academic research is severely under-resourced and under-recognized in the state of Nevada. While the national community has developed best practices for effective research and education information technology (or, "cyberinfrastructure"), Nevada has remained outside of this evolution. With two fledgling Carnegie R1 universities, a dedicated research institute, and several state and community colleges at risk of falling further behind in cyber expertise, the Nevada System of Higher Education has created a joint discovery and planning project, "NV-DICE: Nevada Vision for a co-Developed Impactful Cyberinfrastructure Ecosystem". NV-DICE brings together the Chief Information Officers and their teams from the major research institutions in Nevada to discover the current state of research IT affairs and plot a collective path forward that will best serve the state. In recognition of the need to work across campus borders, pool subject matter expertise, and capitalize on geographic strengths, the project focuses on developing a true community of practice. Over the two-year planning period, each campus is performing coordinated assessments, distilling priorities, and creating campus CI Plans. The team is engaging teaching-focused institutions to discover the collective state of IT education across Nevada, and co-develop a core regional architecture for networks, identity, and security that enable cooperative and resilient community cyberinfrastructures for all. The resulting update to the Nevada Science and Technology Plan serves as a launching point for future competitive infrastructure and Team Science proposals. NV-DICE's team "office hours", annual summits, and cooperative engineering is establishing a new era for Nevada's academic technology culture. This award by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). 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.