Taking the OpenMI forward

The pressure to take a more integrated approach both to science and to management increases by the day. A consequence of this situation is that there is strong encouragement in the science world not just to understand and to be able to predict the response of individual processes but also to predict how those processes will interact. The manager is similarly encouraged to think in the widest possible terms about the likely impact of any policy before it is implemented. One response to this situation has been an increased interest in integrated modelling and a consequent interest in technologies that allow models of different processes, based on different concepts and from different suppliers to be linked. A European Commission co-funded group has developed such a mechanism, the OpenMI, and is now transforming their research output into an operational standard. However, a technical solution alone is not sufficient. It must be delivered in a way that makes its use acceptable across the world. This paper sets out for discussion in Workshop 13, a strategy for the future development, delivery and use of the OpenMI.