Intensive Leiden collaboration on ICT for research
Leiden University and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have signed an agreement on ICT for research. This is the further concretisation of previous cooperation between the two.
In the presence of Martijn Ridderbos, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Leiden University, and Kim Smit, a member of the Executive Board of the LUMC, a collaboration agreement was signed in a hybrid ceremony on 22 December.
Many advantages
By intensifying their collaboration in ICT services for computational and data-intensive research, the two organisations will benefit from multiple opportunities and possibilities. These include shared access to expensive and scarce resources, joint knowledge generation, knowledge exchange and joint innovation. The collaboration also involves optimising ICT management, support and utilisation, and benefiting from economies of scale. The two institutions will collaborate on both a strategic and tactical/operational level.
The agreement initially covers three topics. The two institutions will share their computing power for data-intensive research by continuing to use each other’s high-performance computing systems. They will also work together on research-data storage and management, and will intensify their collaboration relating to using each other’s data centres to host research equipment. More topics may be added at a later stage.
New insights
‘We, and our Executive Board, are very enthusiastic about the collaboration,’ said Martijn Ridderbos. ‘We complement each other in the partnership, which is good. This will enable us to gain new insights because we each collect data from a different perspective. It will also mean that we don’t have to buy expensive ICT resources twice. We see this as an initiative that can be replicated in other parts of our organisations.’
‘New insights and greater economies of scale and flexibility in computing power will make new research and innovations possible. Moreover, the two organisations will develop knowledge together and share it with each other. All in all a good starting point for fruitful collaboration between two obvious partners,’ Kim Smit concluded.
This collaboration fits well with the LUMC’s strategic positioning. One of its strategic priorities is ‘Population Health’, for example, a research field where a lot of data-driven research is carried out into people’s health. The more-generic data from Leiden University could provide new insights into people’s lifestyles in the region and offer more targeted solutions for disease prevention.