Multiscale Modeling (MSM)Consortium Mission

• To grow the field of multiscale modeling in biomedical, biological and behavioral systems

• To promote multidisciplinary scientific collaboration among multiscale modelers

• To encourage future generations of multiscale modelers

• To move the field of biological computational modeling forward in the following disciplines
  • predictive models of biology, health and disease
  • bioenergy and bioremediation
  • biomimetics

• To developing accurate methods and algorithms to cross the interface between multiple spatiotemporal scales

• To promote model sharing and the development of reusable multiscale models

• To disseminate the models and insights arrived from the models to the larger biomedical, biological, and behavioral research community

MSM Charter

Participants

Active Participants are those contributing substantial input and feedback in a timely manner to the Working Group (WG) lead. Active participants are listed on the IMAG wiki, have a MSM login to edit the public IMAG wiki, are included in the MSM listserv.

• List-serve members will be contacted once per year to determine their level of continued involvement in the MSM Consortium. Only active participants will remain on the list-serve.
• IMAG/MSM wiki accounts will only be given out to active MSM members. Users wishing to have an MSM account created for them should contact Katie Serrano who will verify member participation with the working group leads.

Observer participants are described as those participants who mainly take the information from WG discussions and do not provide open contributions. Observer participants are put on the WG email lists (not the main MSM listserv) and sit in on telephone conferences as disseminated by the WG lead. Observers may actively participate from time to time as they wish. Observer participants do not receive IMAG wiki logins.

• All active participants of the MSM Consortium are currently funded through the initiatives of IMAG
  • This must include the PI and one collaborator on the researcher team, or in the case of multiple PI grants all the co-PI's
  • This may include other members of the investigator team for each project
  • This may include investigators (not currently receiving funding from IMAG initiatives) from the scientific community who have expressed an interest in actively participating in the IMAG wiki discussion
• MSM Participants who have completed their MSM funded projects may stay in the Consortium, but will need to discuss their level of participation to IMAG in a written statement
• New awardees from the IMAG initiatives will be introduced to the Consortium as they are awarded

• As appropriate, active participants must represent the MSM project from which they are supported. This means they should represent the views of the PI if the PI is not the representative active member of a particular WG. The purpose of denoting active participants is to give people more responsibility in participating in a particular WG.

• MSM Projects currently with multiple participants in one WG should assign one active participant to be the point of contact for the project; all others will become observers (this can rotate). That active participant will represent the views of the MSM project and of the observers from that project. In this way, the WG lead and the other active participants will only expect feedback from one person from that MSM project, rather than waiting to hear back from multiple persons. This guideline is intended help those WGs getting very little feedback and as well those WGs having a hard time reaching a consensus.

MSM Working Groups

• All public IMAG wiki discussions including those discussed in the WGs should be related to the MSM mission described above

• WGs will be evaluated at the annual MSM Consortium meetings, where WG leads will report back to the Consortium

• New WGs can be proposed to IMAG at any time, if there is a lead and at least two interested active participants

• Each WG will be scheduled to have at least two scientific presentations to IMAG and the MSM Consortium each year

• A description of MSM Consortium participation will be reported in the annual reports of each MSM funded project

Working Group (WG) leads

• WG leads must be a PI on an MSM award, or equivalent (approved by IMAG) award

• The WG lead will respond to inquiries from the broader scientific community regarding the invidual WG, form and monitor the WG with active and observer participants

• The WG lead will take the responsibility of arranging and leading the scheduled WG presentations, and including both active and observer WG participants in all their communications

• WG leads are encouraged to rotate the responsibilities with the other active participants of the WG

• WG leads will work with Katie Serrano to verify active member participation in the WG