200. From Experiment to Institution: Is Sano Ready for the Real Test?

Abstract:

Sano has entered an interesting phase in its development. In this seminar, delivered from the perspective of the Director after my first term in office, I will reflect on what we have achieved so far and outline the strategic choices that will shape the centre over the next four years. I will discuss how Sano can mature as an autonomous research foundation while preserving the values that have made it distinctive: quality, agility, trust, openness, and independence. This includes finding the right balance between basic and applied research, with a strong emphasis on translational work at the interface of computing, AI, engineering, and medicine. I will also address how research teams may evolve in a more competitive funding environment, where growth will increasingly depend on external grants, partnerships, and opportunities for translation and commercialization.

The seminar will also consider Sano’s role in the wider research, healthcare, and innovation ecosystem in Kraków, Poland, and Europe, including our position in virtual human twin and computing infrastructure initiatives. Finally, I emphasize that Sano’s future depends above all on its people and culture. My vision is for Sano to become a mature, resilient centre of excellence: scientifically ambitious, financially sustainable, internationally connected, and capable of creating meaningful scientific, technological, and societal impact.

About the author:

Maciej Malawski holds a PhD in computer science from AGH, as well as MSc degrees in computer science and theoretical physics. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Notre Dame, USA, in 2011–2012. He is currently Director of Sano – Centre for Computational Medicine, Research Team Leader for Extreme-scale Data and Computing, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science, AGH University of Krakow, and Senior Researcher at the Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH. He has more than 25 years of research experience in parallel and distributed computing, high-performance computing, cloud technologies, serverless and container-based infrastructures, and federated machine learning. His work focuses on applying these technologies to scientific computing, with particular interest in scientific workflows, emerging large-scale computing infrastructures, performance evaluation, resource management, scheduling, cost optimization, and advanced computing for medicine. He has co-authored more than 200 scientific papers; served on technical program committees of major conferences in scientific, parallel, and distributed computing, including SC, HPDC, ICCS, CCGrid, UCC, and IPDPS; and was General Co-Chair of Euro-Par 2020. He is a member of the Steering Committees of Euro-Par and IEEE Cluster and serves on the Board of Directors of the VPH Society. Since 2002, he has participated in numerous European and nationally funded research projects, including CrossGrid, CoreGRID, ViroLab, VPH-Share, Eur-Valve, CECM, InSilicoWorld, NearData, ThromboRisk, NCN Opus, and ministry-funded projects.