ICER finds new home at MSU

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The Biomedical and Physical Sciences Branch Library soon will be closed and two new tenants might inhabit the space as early as the end of the semester.

The BPS library, located in the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building, will be the new home of the Institute for Cyber Enabled Research, or iCER, and potentially also will house a program funded through the National Science Foundation called the Beacon STC Grant.

Both iCER and Beacon focus on technology-enhanced research, with iCER focusing more on MSU programs and Beacon reaching out to other universities and research facilities across the globe. MSU is one of 11 schools vying for the $50 million grant and would serve as a research and output center for evolutionary science.

Together with ICER, which enables groups to use high-performance computing for research, the Beacon grant would set MSU as one of the top centers for evolutionary science, said Leo Kempel, assistant dean of the College of Engineering.

“The investments made by MSU in people and expertise over the course of the past 10 years or more brings us to the point where we were really the best institution for conducting this type of science in the world,” Kempel said.

The library would be disbanded as a result of the move, but Cliff Haka, director of MSU Libraries, said all of the materials that could be transformed to electronic copies would switch over, and all other material would be put into the Main Library.

“We will reassign (staff) somewhere in the Main Library,” Haka said. “And we also will try to reemploy any student assistants who are working there.”

The decision to put iCER and Beacon in the BPS space came after university administrators found their original site for the project, which was on the third floor of Anthony Hall, would cost more than $3 million to renovate, whereas the library would only cost about $1 million.

“It was, in terms of cost, much more cost effective than an alternative solution we initially started with,” said Barb Kranz, interim director of Facilities, Planning and Space Management.

Members of the National Science Foundation are scheduled to visit the site Oct. 25 to determine whether MSU will receive the $50 million in funds for the project.

The money would be received over a 10-year period. Kempel said MSU officials will know by the end of this year if they will receive the money.

Regardless of the Beacon grant, iCER will move into the space sometime next semester.

The iCER program began last year but has only been using limited rooms in the high performance computer center, said iCER director Wolfgang Bauer.

With the increased space, the program will be able to hire up to 25 more undergraduate and graduate students, he said.

“ICER has a mission to enable people to get into computing much more easily,” Bauer said. “That is good for faculty and students all over the university.”

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