The UNEDF Charter
This charter was accepted on August 14, 2008, by a ratification vote of the UNEDF voting members.
1. Purpose of the Charter
This Charter establishes the functions, organizational
structure, and responsibilities within the UNEDF Project.
2. Project Director
The Director is appointed by the Agencies and has the overall
responsibility for the UNEDF project. He/she is the primary
point of contact with the Agencies.
3. Co-Directors
The Co-Directors are nominated by the Project Director and
approved by the Agencies. Their principal responsibility is to
assist the Project Director with project management.
4. UNEDF Council
The Council consists of the Director and co-Directors and
additional members drawn from the Collaboration. The
additional members are nominated by the Director and
co-Directors and approved by the voting members (Sec.5) of the
Collaboration. The Council represents different subfields and
institutions of UNEDF science. The Council oversees project
integration and coordination among the subfields. It coordinates
the project timetables and deliverables. It also makes
recommendations to DOE regarding the scientific direction of the
project and its budget.
5. Voting Members
The UNDEF collaboration members who are Principal Investigators
(PIs), co-PIs, or senior investigators are voting members.
6. Procedures
a. The Council will conduct its business in a democratic manner with one vote per Council member.
b. Vacancies on the Council must be replaced immediately.
c. The Council shall meet monthly by conference calls, or more often as needed. The conference calls are organized by the Project Director. The agenda for each conference call will be posted on UNEDF.org at least 3 business days prior to the call to enable consultations between voting members and Council members as needed. Minutes of the Council meetings are to be posted on UNEDF.org. Draft minutes are to be placed on UNEDF.org within one week following the conference call. Final minutes are posted within one day of the vote to accept the minutes at the following conference call.
d. To make the progress transparent and to integrate science across tasks, reports on the progress in UNEDF subfields, presented at the Council meetings, are to be posted on UNEDF.org.
e. A voting member may propose agenda items for Council meetings by contacting any Council member.
f. Any voting member may attend a Council meeting at the invitation of a Council member.
g. Certain Council meetings may be declared "open" for any voting member to attend without specific invitation. These will be indicated when the agenda is posted on the web site.
7. NERSC Computational Resources
To help assure adequate computing resources, a NERSC coordinator
will be appointed by the Director. The task is to obtain
allocations from NERSC, maintain a NERSC repository, and
distribute allotments as needed for UNEDF computation.
8. Website
The collaboration website, UNEDF.org, shall serve as a
communication tool and as an outreach window into the UNEDF
science. It is supervised by a member of UNEDF appointed by the
Council and maintained by a communication coordinator.
9. Annual Meeting
The UNEDF collaboration meeting is to be held annually. It is
organized by the UNEDF Director and co-Directors or designated
collaboration members. The reports presented during the meeting
summarize scientific progress of the Project and serve as a
basic input to the Continuation Annual Report.
10. Foreign Collaborators
UNEDF collaborates closely with a number of foreign efforts and
individual scientists sharing similar scientific goals. Such
collaborations include joint software developments and benchmarking.
Representatives of Foreign Collaborating Projects are invited
to attend the UNEDF
annual meeting. The license status of joint software developments is
subject to 12b.
11. Continuation Annual Report
The Continuation Annual Report is put together by the Project
Director and co-Directors. It contains i) scientific progress,
ii) new work plans, and iii) proposed budgets for the following
year.
12. Deliverables
The main deliverables of UNEDF are publications, reports,
conference presentations, and computer codes.
a. Publications and Talks: All deliverables should contain the acknowledgement to the appropriate DOE Grant number(s).
b. Computer codes: The final versions of computer codes (i.e. meeting all benchmarks required) developed under UNEDF are to be released as open source software, using one of the standard open source licenses (GNU, BSD-like, etc.) to ensure that the community as a whole benefits from the software developed under UNEDF funding. Releases are expected to contain documentation, installation instructions for each platform on which the code runs, and input and output files for test cases.
13. Amendments
a. Amendments to this charter must originate from the UNEDF Council or from a group of five voting members sending statements of support to the Council.
b. Amendments to the charter may be adopted by a vote of voting members (plurality required) or unanimous vote of the Council. If the amendment passes by Council vote, a group of ten at-large voting members may request a vote by the entire Collaboration and the amendment in question is suspended until the vote can be held. Upon notification of the passage of the amendment, all voting members will have two weeks to request the vote.
14. Ratification
This Charter shall be accepted as a document providing guidance
and rules of operation for the UNEDF Collaboration following a
ratification vote in which 2/3 voting members favor adoption of
the charter. The UNEDF Council shall administer the ratification
vote.