The Big Picture

The Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) was launched in 2004 as a major collaborative venture of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Duke University and North Carolina State University. Supported by the state of North Carolina, RENCI focuses on finding solutions to complex, multidisciplinary problems. The institute is a virtual organization that includes facilities at the three Triangle universities, East Carolina University, UNC Asheville and UNC Charlotte. RENCI brings together academia, government, industry and world-class computing and technology resources to find innovative solutions to these problems.

RENCI engagement centers provide a focal point for campus collaboration.  In addition to the UNC-Chapel Hill center, there are centers at Duke University and at NC State University.  In addition, there are regional engagement centers at UNC Asheville, East Carolina University, and UNC Charlotte.

The RENCI@UNC Chapel Hill Engagement Center

The RENCI@UNC Engagement Center is the focal point for collaboration on the UNC campus.  Located in the ITS-Manning building, the center houses several unique visualization environments, and is staffed by experts in multiple areas.  Together, the visulization environments, the engagement center staff, and other hardware and software resources create unique capabilities that can be applied to a wide range of collaborative opportunities.

Collaboration – The RENCI Mission

The RENCI @ UNC Engagement Center plays a key role in RENCI’s efforts to work with campus faculty and staff.  The engagement center provides substantial physical resources, technology, and expertise, and also acts as a conduit for the extensive capabilities represented by the rest of the RENCI organization.

RENCI is at its heart a collaborative organization.  RENCI’s great strength is the wide range of expertise and significant resources that can be applied to multi-disciplinary problems. RENCI@UNC-CH is part of the larger RENCI organization, and can contribute significant capabilities and resources to UNC projects.  The Engagement Center also provides a conduit to all of the resources of the RENCI virtual organization.

There are a broad range of projects and initiatives at RENCI, from grid computing to digital humanities.  (Refer to the RENCI web site for an overview of focus areas and projects).  RENCI@UNC-CH tracks and contributes to many of the focus areas of the overall organization, but exists to serve the faculty, staff, and students of UNC-Chapel Hill.

This section provides a survey of current areas of collaboration, and illustrates some of the capabilities of the Engagement Center.  Please keep in mind that these areas are meant as an overview!  RENCI as an organization stresses flexibility and an entrepreneurial spirit, so these ‘Areas of Collaboration’ should not be taken a limit to the types of collaboration the Engagement Center can support.