MRI: Development of ACCORD, a Community Cyberinstrument for Broadening Access to Research on Sensitive Data

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This 11 public university collaboration in Virginia develops ACCORD, an innovative research computing cyberinstrument to support the storage, access, and usage of sensitive data for researchers at participating institutions across the State. Beyond simply securing research data, the ACCORD cyberinstrument provides customizable secured research environments that can be integrated into each institution's workflows and security models to assure compliance with relevant laws and regulations applicable to specific data types. Through ACCORD, researchers across the State of Virginia have access to new research computing capabilities not previously possible (or not easily accessible), enabling them to undertake projects that require complex protection of sensitive data. In addition to enabling new research, ACCORD advances important dimensions of research such as reproducibility and data accountability. ACCORD is also a new model for collaboration, providing a common platform for researchers at multiple institutions and in different disciplines to securely share data and analytics.In addition to driving exciting scientific discoveries with strong societal impact, the Virginia ACCORD program prioritizes research training and education in data security and privacy for students and researchers across the State. The Virginia ACCORD Consortium comprises universities of different sizes and missions, including minority-serving and non-PhD granting institutions, and is an effective platform for outreach and broadening participation to underrepresented and underserved communities. Lessons learned from the ACCORD's new model of collaboration and sharing compute resources are also being disseminated to other research computing consortia and communities across the U.S.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.