The meeting originated with a survey commissioned in early 2000 by Dr. Robert Robbins, Chief Information Officer of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The survey examined how major research institutions provide Information Technology (IT) support for their research groups.

Ten biomedical research organizations that were deemed similar to Fred Hutchinson were surveyed. The goal was to identify the state of IT support for scientific research (including common trends, and strategic directions for the future) to guide cost-effective development of high level technical and infrastructure support. The survey emphasized support for research informatics rather than issues surrounding administrative computing (i.e. payroll, human resources) or patient management. Issues not related to research IT were specifically not included unless they related to the research informatics infrastructure.