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SURF Research Day

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Mark your calendar for SURF Research Day 2023. It’s the national conference that connects research, IT and innovation. The event takes place on May 23rd 2023. It's free!

SURF Research Day

Programme SURF Research Day 2023

  1. 10.00

    Opening en Keynote

    10.00
    10.50
    Annette Langedijk and Bram Maasakkers
    10.00
    10.50

    Bram Maasakkers 
    Tech and Innovation: How to find methane leaks around the world with satellites  

    Bram is a scientist at SRON, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research. His work is focusing on better understanding missions of methane and carbon monoxide emissions using observations of atmospheric concentrations from satellites in space. 

    It is considered as a quick-fix against climate change: reducing methane emissions. Research institute SRON and its partners developed the space instrument TROPOMI, which can detect super emitters from space. These are facilities in the gas or oil industry that emit excessive amounts of methane. But also garbage dumps were detected as super emitters. How can Tropomi find these kinds of leaks? And what will be the impact of these findings? 

    Bram will tell us how Tropomi works, orbiting the earth daily on a European satellite. He also shows what we can achieve by discovering the methane leaks. 

    Biography of Bram Maasakkers  
    Bram graduated from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and got his Master in Applied Physics at the Technical University in Eindhoven. 

    Annette Langedijk and Bram Maasakkers
  2. 10.50

    Research Support Champion Award Winners 1&2

    10.50
    11.00
    10.50
    11.00

    SURF Research Support Champions are individuals who have made outstanding efforts to support research at their institution. By research supporters we mean anyone who supports researchers in the field of research datamanagement, ict and open science. In storing, managing, archiving and sharing their research data, but also with software development and advice on research applications. Think of data stewards, ict workers, librarians or research assistants. 

    In total, three Research Support Champions will be honored. The winners will be announced during the research day. 

     

  3. 11.00

    Morning break

    11.00
    11.30

  4. 11.30
    1. 11.30

      A data findability platform for pediatric cancer research and care

      11.30
      12.20
      Research IT | The stations blueprint  
      Zandstraalcabine
      11.30
      12.20
      Research IT | The stations blueprint  
      Zandstraalcabine

      The Princess Máxima Center aims to cure every child with cancer while maintaining their quality of life. To achieve this, they want to optimize the exchange of data and knowledge between research and care. They plan to create a central metadata registry that acts as a platform for easy data discovery and reuse. They have conducted a pre-investigation to define a data findability strategy and are implementing DISQOVER, a technology that combines datasets spread across the organization into a single semantic data network. They will discuss the challenges associated with the implementation and organizational challenges, including seven key features and lessons learned from DISQOVER's use by pharmaceutical companies.

    2. 11.30

      Using Supercomputing to Create a Digital Twin of the Dutch Population

      11.30
      12.20
      Research Applications | A trainload of tools  
      Droogcabine
      11.30
      12.20
      Research Applications | A trainload of tools  
      Droogcabine

      Statistics Netherlands (CBS) is exploring agent-based modelling as a method to understand the complexities of socio-economic systems in Dutch society. They aim to create a platform to provide insights into complex systems and answer questions related to policy-making and social inequality. The talk will explain how they use a modern agent-based modelling tool (BioDynaMo) to run simulations on the ODISSEI Secure Supercomputer, using data from CBS and RIVM to calibrate a COVID-19 model. The results obtained through the distributed particle swarm optimization method will be shared.

    3. 11.30

      The CAFE community: a local, inclusive programming community for researchers

      11.30
      12.20
      Research Collaborations | Join the ride
      Ketelhuis
      11.30
      12.20
      Research Collaborations | Join the ride
      Ketelhuis

      Learn how to start, grow, and sustain a local programming community with the CAFE (Code Along, Feel Empowered) method from programming community organizers at TU Delft, Utrecht University, and VU Amsterdam. In this interactive session, they will share their success stories and effective strategies, including the CAFE Playbook, to empower and connect researchers with coding skills, and how support staff can benefit from their research community. The session is part of the Future track, exploring tech, process, and support, and is suitable for both researchers and research support professionals. Join the discussion to learn how to create a welcoming and inclusive space for programming learning communities.

    4. 11.30

      The state and future of neuromorphic computing in the Netherlands

      11.30
      12.20
      Future: tech – process – support | The future express  
      Onderdelendepot
      11.30
      12.20
      Future: tech – process – support | The future express  
      Onderdelendepot

      Neuromorphic computing offers a promising new paradigm that can potentially overcome the limitations and bottlenecks of traditional computing architectures while mitigating their huge energy usage. These architectures, inspired by the human brain, can be orders of magnitude more efficient by co-locating memory and computing in massively parallel connected neurons and synapses, but only if we find the right applications. This panel discussion will focus on the state and future of neuromorphic computing, exploring where the field currently stands, where it is headed, and what is needed for it to fulfill its promise.

    5. 11.30

      Responsible AI: the epistemology of using machine learning as a research method

      11.30
      12.20
      Responsible Research | The travel essentials 
      Wachtkamer 2
      11.30
      12.20
      Responsible Research | The travel essentials 
      Wachtkamer 2

      During a panel conversation we will dive into the impact the increased use of machine learning and AI has on doing research and the scientific method. What role do explainability and reproducibility play in doing 'good' research? In discussion with a diverse panel consisting of scientists, engineers and philosophers (hopefully, if we get all our guests to agree) we will discover what is necessary for research using AI/ML to mature into a professional and responsible practice.

       

    6. 11.30

      Biking on the edge

      11.30
      12.20
      Research Applications | A trainload of tools  
      Wachtkamer 6
      11.30
      12.20
      Research Applications | A trainload of tools  
      Wachtkamer 6

      Join the Smart Bikes project, a collaboration between HvA, Velotech Solutions and SURF, to explore the future of smart cities. By attaching small edge devices to bikes, this project is improving safety and wellbeing in cities through autonomous analysis of surroundings. The edge devices consist of an edge-computing unit with a camera and additional sensors, running complex algorithms to detect problems in real-time. The project also incorporates cloud computing and machine learning models to manage and improve the system. Join the movement towards smart-city solutions of the future and explore the possibilities of modern cloud infrastructures.

  5. 12.20

    Lunch break

    12.20
    13.20

  6. 13.20
    1. 13.20

      Interactive and collaborative AI for biodiversity monitoring and beyond

      13.20
      14.10
      Research Collaborations | Join the ride
      Zandstraalcabine
      13.20
      14.10
      Research Collaborations | Join the ride
      Zandstraalcabine

      ARISE is a platform for biodiversity research and AI evolution, built on open science principles to foster collaboration across institutes. We're developing an AI system to recognize all 8.7 million species on Earth, and envision our platform as a national infrastructure for open AI development. Our interactive AI training enables humans to annotate data while algorithms learn and select more meaningful data, optimizing time and improving performance.

    2. 13.20

      Monitoring Oceans

      13.20
      14.10
      Research Applications | A trainload of tools 
      Droogcabine
      13.20
      14.10
      Research Applications | A trainload of tools 
      Droogcabine

      In recent years, the integration of fibre optic telecommunication cable monitoring technologies has not been fully achieved, hindering novel applications and research in Earth science. However, recent collaborations among national seismic and oceanographic infrastructures, National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), universities, research institutes, and industry in Europe have developed techniques to monitor the Earth and its systems using submarine optical telecommunication fibres. The SUBMERSE project aims to create a pilot research instrument that can continuously monitor existing submarine fibre optic cables, promoting sustainable development goals and leading to new scientific collaborations. This requires the collaboration of multiple stakeholders both nationally and internationally.

    3. 13.20

      Sharing personal data and the GDPR - How can it be done?

      13.20
      14.10
      Responsible Research | The travel essentials 
      Ketelhuis
      13.20
      14.10
      Responsible Research | The travel essentials 
      Ketelhuis

      Sharing personal data in the age of the GDPR is a tough challenge. Fear of non-compliance has made researchers reluctant to comply with requests to share their research data when it contains personal data. While anonymization is often hailed as the solution to avoid non-compliance, achieving fully anonymized data according to the GDPR is quite challenging, and it often produces data of lesser utility than the original source. In this workshop, we will discuss how personal data can be shared under the GDPR. We will do so showing two resources developed at Utrecht University: the Data Privacy Handbook (https://uu.nl/privacyhandbook) and the privacy scan (https://geo-data-support.sites.uu.nl/personal-data/privacy-review/). These resources offer concrete guidelines in the design and execution of a research project. The workshop will end with a discussion on frequently-encountered data sharing issues and ways to circumvent those issues.

    4. 13.20

      TruSSD: Trust in Sharing Sensitive Data

      13.20
      14.10
      Research IT | The stations blueprint  
      Onderdelendepot
      13.20
      14.10
      Research IT | The stations blueprint  
      Onderdelendepot

      Exciting news from SURF and ODISSEI! As work package leaders, they have submitted a proposal to streamline the European landscape of Trusted Research Environments (TREs) as part of the Horizon 2023 Work Programme. The proposal focuses on technology, trust, and data governance, with the goal of opening up sensitive data for transnational and transdisciplinary analysis. Deliverables include a TRE Interoperability Framework, Building Blocks, Reference Architecture, and Pre-made Configurations. Drawing on the SANE project, the proposal aims to tackle the challenges of aligning TREs on a European level, with discussions on building blocks such as AAI and showcasing the architecture. Let's explore the potential of these TREs and their impact on trusted research!

    5. 13.20

      Is the cloud a way to heaven? How to make demand and supply meet for Life Science Research and Infrastructure

      13.20
      14.10
      Research IT | The stations blueprint  
      Wachtkamer 1
      13.20
      14.10
      Research IT | The stations blueprint  
      Wachtkamer 1

      Data in Life Sciences research is growing, leading to increased use of computational approaches. Consortia with partners covering diverse expertise execute many of these projects. However, DevOps and Cloud computing expertise are often lacking, which is necessary for proper deployment, scaling, web development, and parallel computing. We will share our struggles in moving from research-type to large-scale software solutions for accommodating more users and services. After sharing our use cases from two projects, VHP4Safety and ONTOX, which have similar challenges in computational and software development, we will define and discuss relevant user stories on topics such as cloud, HPC or data management in round table discussions.

    6. 13.20

      Computational steering: Interactive Design-through-Analysis for Simulation Sciences

      13.20
      14.10
      Future: tech – process – support | The future express  
      Wachtkamer 6
      13.20
      14.10
      Future: tech – process – support | The future express  
      Wachtkamer 6

      Computational steering has evolved with advances in computing and visualization technologies. This session will showcase interactive design-through-analysis techniques that seamlessly integrate computer-aided design and simulation-based analysis tools. The approach replaces traditional simulation-based analysis with IgANets, which embeds physics-informed machine learning into the Isogeometric Analysis paradigm. IgANets train parametrized deep networks to predict solution coefficients of B-Spline/NURBS representations, enabling instantaneous evaluation and interactive feedback loops. A first-of-its-kind demonstrator coupling IgANets with a novel user frontend, developed at SURF, will be presented to initiate a new trend in computational steering towards interactive design-through-analysis.

  7. 14.10
    1. 14.10

      Gamification of research

      14.10
      15.20
      Responsible Research | The travel essentials 
      Wachtkamer 1
      14.10
      15.20
      Responsible Research | The travel essentials 
      Wachtkamer 1

      Researchers and research supporters need to have a wide range of skills to efficiently work. However, they are not always equipped with all necessary skills and need to learn them through training. The challenge of efficient knowledge transfer in research support requires teachers to come up with creative teaching methods. Games can be used as experiential learning tools to teach subjects otherwise regarded as tedious. We have developed several escape rooms which have been used to teach researchers about open-science and research data and software management. The added value of sharing essential knowledge in a fun and motivating way was clear for researchers and research supporters alike.

      Our session will give a taste of playing our latest escape room "Publish or Purrish", show how it can be developed, and discuss which topics in research support could lend themselves best to gamification.

    2. 14.10

      Geo Data Team at the Faculty of Geosciences of Utrecht University

      14.10
      15.20
      Research Collaborations | Join the ride
      Wachtkamer 2
      14.10
      15.20
      Research Collaborations | Join the ride
      Wachtkamer 2

      The Geo Data Team (GDT) at Utrecht University's Faculty of Geosciences provides data management support by embedding data stewards, the faculty data manager, and the faculty privacy officer into each department, resulting in successful collaborative efforts, inter-departmental networks, and a team-based approach to resolving researcher's data-related issues.

    3. 14.10

      Measuring Chronic Pain Patients through Home-Based IOT movement sensors and SURF Research Cloud

      14.10
      15.20
      Research Applications | A trainload of tools  
      Postwagon 1a
      14.10
      15.20
      Research Applications | A trainload of tools  
      Postwagon 1a

      Join us for a demo of the GRIP study led by Rins Rutgers, a research engineer at HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. The study collects raw movement data from motion sensors and labeled data from the context of people with chronic pain, with the goal of identifying differences in exercise behavior between healthy and chronically ill individuals. To ensure secure and automated archiving of the data, the HU has developed a custom web application and uses docking stations and sensors installed in participants' homes. During the demo, Rins will explain the study's architecture and underlying technologies. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research in chronic pain management!

    4. 14.10

      Results from the DCC-PO projects

      14.10
      15.20
      Responsible Research | The travel essentials 
      Postwagon 1b
      14.10
      15.20
      Responsible Research | The travel essentials 
      Postwagon 1b

      Demonstrate that at scale a trusted solution is available for organizations employing researchers needing to store and process data with their own tooling. A solution that unburdens the organization, empowers the users and allows for collaboration including people external to the organization. A trusted solution that allows researchers to do 'scary' things in a contained environment.

    5. 14.10

      Bridging the gap: hosting Linked Open Data for researchers

      14.10
      15.20
      Research Collaborations | Join the ride
      Postwagon 2a
      14.10
      15.20
      Research Collaborations | Join the ride
      Postwagon 2a

      The UvA/HvA Library started publishing its collection metadata as Linked Open Data (LOD) in 2021, using a data transformation pipeline and Triply SAAS instance. A pilot project investigated whether this infrastructure could host other LOD datasets. Three research datasets from CREATE initiative were published as LOD, which turned out to have significant added value for combining various data sources in SPARQL queries. The project recommends continuing this as a permanent service for UvA/HvA datasets. The presentation could also provide more context on the library's infrastructure, the three datasets, and a live demo of SPARQL queries if time allows.

    6. 14.10

      Quantum cryptography for researchers

      14.10
      15.20
      Research IT | The stations blueprint  
      Postwagon 2b
      14.10
      15.20
      Research IT | The stations blueprint  
      Postwagon 2b

      The second quantum revolution is expected to bring about a plethora of new technologies, as increased control and understanding of quantum systems become possible. Quantum communication technologies offer new ways to securely exchange information, which is increasingly crucial in today's world. In this talk, we introduce emerging quantum communication technologies and explain their relevance and differences to existing communication technologies. SURF is currently evaluating the usefulness of quantum technologies for the Dutch research community, and researchers are invited to discuss potential benefits in their research and respond to an open call for proposals on quantum communication for research.

    7. 14.10

      Shape the future of research

      14.10
      15.20
      Future: tech – process – support | The future express  
      Houtwagen
      14.10
      15.20
      Future: tech – process – support | The future express  
      Houtwagen

      In this session, groups will contemplate the future of research and the role of researchers and support. They will explore the potential impact of technology and consider whether an automated process with robotic support will replace human involvement. The group will discuss whether this is a desirable future and engage in interesting dialogue about the future of research.

  8. 15.30

    Endnote

    15.30
    16.30
    Deborah Nas
    15.30
    16.30

    Deborah Nas 
    A refreshing look at technology, innovation and our future 

    Deborah is an innovation expert, technology trendwatcher, author and professor.  
    Acting at the intersection of psychology, technology and business, she provides illuminating insights into a world where technological innovation is completely turning the world upside down.  

    Using personal anecdotes, she will explain why it is that not everyone immediately embraces new technologies, and that this is very human. In addition, she will place trends and developments in a larger perspective by linking the individual, organizations and society. She will also give practical tips on what organizations can do to become more innovative and embrace new technologies faster. And, of course, she will discuss what is going now, as well as what we can expect in the coming years. 

    Biography of Deborah Nas 
    Deborah Nas is a technology enthusiast, keynote speaker and expert in technology-driven innovation. After starting her career at Philips and KPN, she was a director of a strategic innovation agency for 16 years. She has 25 years of hands-on experience in innovation, working with startups, SMEs and corporates on projects where new technologies form the basis for new products and services.  

    In addition, Deborah is a part-time professor of "Strategic Design for Technology-Based Innovation" at Delft University of Technology.  

    Deborah has compiled her knowledge and experience in the book 'Design Things That Make Sense': a practical guide for startups, scaleups and corporate innovation teams who want to innovate successfully.  

    Deborah Nas
  9. 16.10

    Research Support Champion Award winner 3

    16.10
    16.20
    16.10
    16.20

    SURF Research Support Champions are individuals who have made outstanding efforts to support research at their institution. By research supporters we mean anyone who supports researchers in the field of research datamanagement, ict and open science. In storing, managing, archiving and sharing their research data, but also with software development and advice on research applications. Think of data stewards, ict workers, librarians or research assistants. 

    In total, three Research Support Champions will be honored. The winners will be announced during the research day. 

  10. 16.30

    Drinks & bites

    16.30
    17.30

Sneak-peek at the programme 

We can give you a sneak preview on what to expect at this event! Take a look at the 5 tracks that are developed in the spirit of this year’s theme  Get on board:   

Research Collaborations | Join the ride 
Let’s focus on research support and communities. How can our expertise be organised, what is needed?   

Future: tech – process – support | The future express   
Explore all sessions around innovation of technology, the innovative streamlining of processes and the cooperation between research and support.   

Research IT | The stations blueprint   
These sessions are all about the organisation of facilities, diverse tooling and the (dis)advantages of the use of cloud technology and big tech.   

Responsible Research | The travel essentials  
Are you ready to really think about issues like scarcity (of time, of energy, etc.), the integrity of research, sustainability and open science? Then let's find out in these sessions!  

Research Applications | A trainload of tools   
Do you know what services are used in research, for example the services that SURF offers? And which are suitable for your institution? Let’s discover!  

The Fast Track Festival
Experience the exciting components of Fast Track Festival! Immerse yourself in a diverse range of poster presentations, booths, demos, lightning talks, an escape room for you to participate in, and an expertise table where you can engage in conversations with professionals from SURF on a variety of topics and services. Don't miss out on this opportunity to discover, learn, network and have fun with like-minded professionals! 

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