Scientific Large Scale Infrastructure for Computing/Communication Experimental Studies

SLICES-DE Community

About SLICES-DE

SLICES-DE aims to create a platform that supports research in a globally unique way through providing open and free, science-led access to hardware, software, data, and training materials. Building on this, additional protected usage and collaboration models will enable the development of an ecosystem for innovation and transfer, featuring access-protected hardware components, confidential software components, and access-protected data. This makes it possible to appropriately address the needs of intellectual property protection, including in connection with publicly funded cooperation projects, as well as confidentiality requirements in collaborative projects with industry and in the platform's use by industry. The platform also can be used to offer commercial analysis services, consulting, and training. Revenue from protected and commercial use will be used to improve the platform's infrastructure and staffing.

We prepared a short summary listing the benefits of the SLICES-DE community.

Join SLICES-DE Community

📨 Send us your letter of intent from your organization stating your

  • Field & expertise,
  • Planned use of SLICES-DE,
  • Contribution interest, and
  • Consent to list your organization
Join the SLICES-DE Community

🎓 Benefits for Universities & Research Institutions

  • Access to Research Infrastructure – Use advanced facilities for experiments, collaboration, and skills development.
  • Support for Academic Projects – Resources for theses, practical courses, academic research and collaboration projects.
  • Educational Materials – Course content and execution environments for programming tasks, accessible via remote login.
  • Training Repository – Growing pool of training materials and execution environments within the community.
  • Quota-Based Free Access – Free use of designated infrastructure resources within a set quota.
  • Extended Access Options – Additional resources available through in-kind contributions (hardware, software, services) instead of billed costs.
  • Protected Access Options – Access-protected resources available for IPR-sensitive research and industry collaborations (costs incurring).

🏭 Benefits for Industry Partners

  • Collaboration Models – Flexible cooperation opportunities with universities and research institutions.
  • Platform Contributions – Ability to extend the SLICES-DE platform with hardware, software, data, and evaluation components.
  • Innovation Support – Engage in collaborative experiments and applied research with academic partners.
  • Workforce Development – Benefit from a training ecosystem that builds ICT expertise and skills of future graduates.

🌍 Benefits for the SLICES-DE Community as a Whole

  • Shared Knowledge Base – Collective development of training materials and execution environments.
  • Sustainable Growth – Expansion of infrastructure and resources through community contributions.
  • Cross-Sector Collaboration – Stronger ties between academia and industry in the ICT field.

🤝 Joint Collaboration Models between Academia and Industry

The industry partner directly uses resources provided by SLICES-DE. Industry partners may have stricter requirements for the accessibility of experiment code and results. The SLICES data management model will offer solutions that can ensure confidentiality of data according to the partner’s requirements. This cooperation model can be set up quickly, and remote access to the infrastructure can be provided within one working day. If larger experiments with higher resource requirements are needed, the submission of additional documents is required that details of the intended resource usage, to be approved by a supervisory board.

This model enables research partners to integrate new hardware into existing testbeds temporarily or permanently. Depending on the cooperation model, the resources may be shared with selected partners or provided exclusively for a specific partner, depending on the requirements of the hosting testbed and the device provider. Building the infrastructure for this cooperation model will take a certain amount of time for technical integration of new components, in the order of days or weeks before the new resources can be used.

This model requires the creation of new testbed sites. Companies with strict regulatory requirements or valuable intellectual property may be unable or unwilling to use a public infrastructure for their research. These companies can instead create their own on-site testbed that uses the same SLICES software stack as other SLICES-RI or SLICES-DE testbeds. This offers the highest degree of isolation; however, a company can still benefit from the network effect of SLICES by using the same experimental workflow, which enables the reuse of existing experiment code. Implementing this model will take longer because a new testbed must be commissioned before experiments can be conducted—a process that may take several months. The company can purchase support from SLICES-DE to implement necessary software components, integrate new devices, or provide general assistance for the initial setup of the testbed.

This model uses the resources of SLICES-DE for joint projects between industry and universities. In this case, SLICES-DE acts as the infrastructure provider for the project. This cooperation model offers significant advantages for the project partners, as a joint experimental platform is available without having to create and maintain a project-specific infrastructure. Exclusive SLICES-DE services can be provided to allow temporary exclusive access to hardware resources, and to keep experimental data confidential.