Two research assistants (Beringer and MacKenzie) are requested for three years. Their salaries would be between the middle and the top of the AR1A scale. This high level of stipend is easily justified in relation to the pay scales of the IT professionals who can similarly deliver high-quality software to tight deadlines and who are equally skilled in cutting-edge technologies such as Grid and Web services, Java, XML and SOAP messaging. The research assistants carry the responsibility for theoretical development and innovation in addition to implementation work.
This project would also benefit from the efforts of two PhD students with interests which span programming language theory, type systems, Grid computing and software implementation.