Terms of reference

Purpose

The Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomy Research is a consortium that provides data storage, access, and processing for university groups and centres engaged in astronomy research.

CANFAR develops and operates user-facing and integrated services:

• Research data management
• User-managed storage and cloud processing
• Visualization and analysis applications
• Authentication and authorization
• Support for researchers adapting the platform to their workflows

Mission

1. Maintain and develop data and compute services so Canadian researchers and their international collaborators get the most scientific return from Canada's investment in telescopes and computing.

2. Coordinate shared applications and services across Canadian groups through joint grant proposals and funding requests that combine university science teams with technical teams such as CADC, directed to Canadian science and computing agencies including NSERC, CFI, CANARIE, and NRC.

3. Work with Digital Research Alliance Canada on behalf of the astronomy community so national services meet astronomy requirements.

4. Lower barriers to adopting new data and computing tools in the astronomy community.

5. Share capabilities developed in the astronomy community with other domains.