Plant Science Research Network's Draft 10 Year Strategic Plan for Plant Science Cyberinfrastructure

The Plant Science Research Network (PSRN) consists of 14 professional societies whose members are active in plant science research and education. The overall objective of the PSRN is to implement and update the Plant Science Decadal Vision released in 2014. One major focus of the updated Decadal Vision is a strategic plan for plant science cyberinfrastructure. The purpose of the plan is to define the opportunities and needs for cyberinfrastructure to support plant systems research (from molecules to ecosystems) over the next 10 years.

A visioning workshop was held in October 2016 to draft a framework for the strategic plan. The workshop included participants from the plant and information sciences, from all domains of plant sciences, from academia, industry, non-profits, and government, and from all levels of seniority from students to senior investigators. The workshop drew on inputs from a prior planning workshop, a survey of 52 leaders in the plant and information sciences, and numerous informal inputs from domain conferences during 2016.

Based on the workshop, the PSRN cyberinfrastructure task force has drafted a framework for the strategic plan, which it is now seeking comment on. Community members can read and comment on the framework at the Big Data and Cyberinfrastructure group at www.plantae.org.