The SeIUCCR project is a network of Community Champions who advocate the use of e-Infrastructures in their research. A collaboration between the Software Sustainability Institute and the National Grid Service, the project held a Summer School in September to show researchers how to make use of national e-resources and manage their software and data.

The workshop was aimed at UK doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in the Engineering and Physical Sciences, and with over 100 applicants the competition for the 30 placements was tough.

A host of talks and tutorials gave attendees the opportunity to learn more about using the Cloud and the Grid, with the National Grid Service providing practical sessions on launching jobs on the NGS. A hands-on session about developing and running workflows in Taverna was also popular, and reflected a high degree of engagement with the attendees across the event. Aspects of managing data were also covered.

The Institute's Steve Crouch presented a tutorial on how to manage software in a sustainable way. A unique web-based approach encouraged attendees to think about how best to sustain particular pieces of software in terms of overall approach, infrastructure and support. Participants responded positively to the format, with one attendee finding the overview of the sustainability approaches very useful in placing his use of emulation in context with other possible techniques.

On the last day of the workshop, there was a "quiz the experts" event, with some of the previous speakers engaging with the attendees in a group Q&A session. This was followed by a very productive surgery session, with the experts helping to address individual issues on a per-attendee basis. To end the day, a number of the SeIUCCR Community Champions presented talks on how e-infrastructures were able to assist them in their work.

A wide ranging set of material and actively engaged participants resulted in a very interesting and productive Summer School. It provided a valuable opportunity for experts and attendees to discuss and address the wide variety of software, data and e-infrastructure challenges facing researchers today.