2025-12-04 –, Mission 1
This session aims to explore the feasibility of a community-driven approach to foster energy-efficient scientific computing in the Netherlands. By engaging researchers, support staff, and infrastructure providers, such an initiative can establish a self-sustaining Community of Practice, create an open knowledge base with practical training on energy monitoring and reduction in scientific computing, and organize nationwide training sessions to build foundational expertise. Together, these actions can complement infrastructure-level efficiency improvements with user-level practices, advancing sustainable and environmentally responsible research. A soon-to-be-launched initiative supported by TDCC-NES seeks to do this in the Natural and Engineering Sciences (NES) domain. During the session, participants will have the opportunity to learn more about the initiative, share feedback, and discuss ways to expand its impact to other scientific domains in the Netherlands.
The growing energy demands of scientific computing present significant challenges for environmental sustainability, particularly in disciplines that rely on large-scale, compute-intensive methods. Although advances in energy-efficient hardware and infrastructure have been made, researchers often remain unaware of the energy consumption and environmental impact of their computational tasks. This lack of awareness is largely due to the absence of systematic energy reporting from infrastructure providers and the limited availability of monitoring tools that allow task-level assessment. Additionally, current scientific computing frameworks typically do not offer pre-execution energy estimates, limiting researchers’ ability to make informed trade-offs between performance and energy efficiency. As a result, without appropriate tools and expertise to measure and interpret energy use, researchers cannot fully evaluate the environmental footprint of their work or implement practices that support sustainable computing.
In this session, we aim to explore the potential of a community-driven approach to raise awareness and encourage the adoption of energy-efficient practices in the Netherlands. By engaging research organizations, support institutions, and infrastructure providers, such a collaborative effort can pursue three interconnected objectives to foster a culture of energy-conscious computing: (1) establish a self-sustaining Community of Practice, where researchers, support staff, and infrastructure providers collaboratively share and advance best practices for energy-efficient computing; (2) develop an open knowledge base offering training on practical tools and methods for monitoring and reducing energy consumption; and (3) organize a nationwide series of training sessions to build foundational expertise in energy-efficient computing among researchers and support staff. Together, these initiatives can complement ongoing infrastructure-level efficiency improvements with user-level practices, advancing the broader goal of sustainable and environmentally responsible research. During the session, we will present a soon-to-be-launched initiative supported by the TDCC-NES, designed to improve competences in energy-efficient scientific computing within the Natural and Engineering Sciences (NES) domain, and gather ideas and feedback from participants for expanding its impact to other domains across the Netherlands.
Dr. Serkan Girgin is an Associate Professor in the Geo-information Processing Department at the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente. He has established and is currently leading ITC's Center of Expertise in Big Geodata Science (CRIB), a facility dedicated to advancing geospatial big data and cloud computing technologies by developing, collecting, and sharing operational expertise.
Dr. Girgin's current research focuses on big data and cloud computing tools and infrastructures, with a particular emphasis on optimizing the performance and energy efficiency of geocomputing workflows. He provides strategic advice and consultancy on adopting these technologies for education, research, and capacity-building initiatives. He is also an expert in industrial risk assessment, more specificially technological accidents triggered by natural disasters. Besides developing methodologies, he also designed and developed the European Commission’s Natech Database (eNatech), and the Rapid Natech Risk Assessment and Mapping System (RAPID-N).
In addition to his research, Dr. Girgin designs and develops tools and platforms that promote best practices in research software development and research data management, including fairly toolset, Open Data Explorer, and OpenSTAC. With over 30 years of experience in software development, his expertise spans geocomputing platforms, GIS and remote sensing applications, environmental information systems, and large-scale web applications.
Dr. Girgin is a member of the ESA DestinE Sounding Board in the Netherlands, an eScience Center Fellow, and was named the SURF Research Support Champion in the Netherlands.
Adhitya is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, specializing in Geo-information Processing. His research, in collaboration with The Center of Expertise in Big Geodata Science (CRIB), focuses on energy-efficiency on earth observation big data processing within cloud computing environmet. He holds an M.Sc. in Logistics Information Technology from Pusan National University, Korea (2013) with the focus on vehicle-to-vehicle wireless communication. For the past 10 years, Adhitya has worked as a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia. His experience includes collaborating on national and international projects such as the Indonesia Matching Fund Project, Erasmus+ Micro-Credential, and NICT ASEAN IVO Project. Beyond his primary research, Adhitya has developed a keen interest in the intersection of cloud computing service orchestration and scientific big data processing, particularly in the geospatial domain.