Computing Community Consortium Blog

The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.


Pandemic Research for Preparedness & Resilience (PREPARE)

November 11th, 2020 / in Announcements, CCC, CCC-led white papers, COVID, Healthcare, policy, Quad Paper, research horizons, Research News, resources / by Helen Wright

Recently, the Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) released a white paper called Pandemic Informatics: Preparation, Robustness, and Resilience, by Elizabeth Bradley (University of Colorado Boulder), Madhav Marathe (University of Virginia), Melanie Moses (The University of New Mexico), William D Gropp (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Daniel Lopresti (Lehigh University). It is part of the series of white papers called Quadrennial Papers that explore areas and issues around computing research with potential to address national priorities. 

The Pandemic Informatics paper outlines an effective strategy to reduce the national and global burden of pandemics. It includes (i) detect timing and location of occurrence, taking into account the many interdependent driving factors; (ii) anticipate public reaction to an outbreak, including panic behaviors that obstruct responders and spread contagion; and (iii) develop actionable policies that enable targeted and effective responses. 

One of the authors from this paper, Madhav Marathe in collaboration with Simon Levin, Anil Vullikanti, and Li Xiong, recently launched a relevant National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project called Pandemic Research for Preparedness & Resilience (PREPARE): a virtual organization to foster increased discussion and collaboration among CISE pandemic researchers which is part of an NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) initiative to coalesce a community around the topic of pandemic preparedness. 

“PREPARE will facilitate communication and collaboration among scientists currently involved in pandemic research through the NSF RAPID program. With the guidance of a Steering Committee composed of members from industry, academia, and government agencies, we will encourage the sharing of research results in a way not available without a concerted effort. The depth and breadth of multi-disciplinary collaboration enabled by PREPARE will include researchers, educators, and students interested in general topics related to pandemic planning and resilience. Utilizing a variety of dissemination platforms, we will harness the synergies of the NSF RAPID research programs to facilitate scientific advances and advance public health in the US and around the world.” 

Please see the PREPARE website for more information. Marathe and his colleagues will work to integrate research themes currently explored by CISE’s RAPID grantees into a set of cohesive ideas, and will invite researchers to join working groups. These multidisciplinary teams from academia, government, and industry will identify gaps, recognize scientific advancements, and materially contribute to PREPARE’s research roadmap for addressing the next pandemic. 

Pandemic Research for Preparedness & Resilience (PREPARE)

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