Research objectives

The research objectives of the CHPC are to provide high-end computing and computing expertise for all research in South Africa, including the sciences, medicine, engineering and social sciences.

The CHPC fosters research that addresses grand challenges in science, engineering, medicine and humanities (such as health research and climate change research), as well as grow computational research into a viable mode alongside experiment and theory across all academic disciplines (to support, for example, urban and regional planning researchers).

The CHPC research activities are executed in a model consisting ideally of both nodes in academic and industry departments.

Business objectives

The Vision of the CHPC is planned to be achieved in 5 years, with the start- up phase being finalised in the next 2 years, and the following 3 years focusing on consolidation and growth.

Targets and measures will be organised within DST's basket-of-measures, which include:

• Human Resource Development (such as transformation, Black and Female Scientists, outreach efforts, numbers of MSc and PhD students and post-doc fellowships),
• S&T excellence (such as publications in international peer-reviewed journals, hosting an international scientific conference),
• Innovation and Learning (such as peer review and benchmarking as part of a learning process),
• Customers and Stakeholders (such as customer and partner usage of the CHPC, government support),
• Finance and Investment (such as achieving commercial income targets, adherence to budget), and
• Operational excellence (such as world-class project management and research processes).

The CHPC will need to focus on the following key issues on an ongoing basis in order to accomplish its vision:

• Effective governance
• Development of nodes and partnerships with TEI's, research institutes and industry, locally, nationally, in the rest of Africa, and internationally (particularly with developing countries)
• Human resource development, transformation, capacity development, and training
• Ensuring funding sustainability via government core funding as well as from commercial beneficiaries
• Developing a critical mass in HPC and people
• In partnership mode, do a range of relevant and impactful research projects with visible S&T outcomes
• Provide appropriate support to the nodes and partners
• S&T excellence and an effective research plan
• On an ongoing basis ensure (with government and SANReN support), sufficient and affordable bandwidth
• Develop and implement cutting-edge computational tools
• Effective and focused marketing, including contributing to public understanding of S&T

These issues will form an important part of the ongoing implementation plans of the CHPC.