Scientists from relevant fields such as environmental sciences and geosciences have been customers of the LRZ for decades. The LRZ’s efforts to provide high-quality, tailor-made services for science in this field are summarised under the catchword “Environmental Computing”. The aim of these efforts is to learn from scientists and understand in detail their requirements for IT services in order to finally develop IT services together.

It is of great importance to us that the cooperation between scientists from different research areas of environmental sciences and geosciences and the LRZ employees takes place in partnership and on an equal footing. To ensure this, we have taken various measures: in 2014, we launched the partnership initiative Computational Sciences (πCS). Within the framework of πCS, LRZ experts work in very close cooperation with the scientists. Especially in the field of environmental and geosciences, we have expanded our team of experts in recent years. Many of the colleagues originally come from the domain sciences and have in-depth IT know-how. This enables us to provide our customers in science with more targeted support in the use of complex technologies and thus promote more efficient use of our services. In addition, we focus on joint workshops and cooperate in working groups and research projects.

In addition, we see ourselves not only as a service provider in the field of environmental informatics, but also as a link between research and public authorities. In environmental informatics, the common models are often developed by domain scientists of one department. They often require detailed configurations and settings if they are to be used in a data center. However, this poses an additional challenge: Natural disasters often occur with little time for warning. Emergency services and authorities responsible for environmental protection, emergency response or disaster control generally need fast access to reliable data to help them make decisions. Therefore, the models developed by environmental scientists over the years must be transferred to operational services. This is exactly where we come in to create the link between science and decision-makers.