The Clean Slate Program is an interdisciplinary research program

Research program

A research program is a coordinated set of projects undertaking related research, often at national or even international level, with government funding....

 at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 which aims to consider how the internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 would be redesigned with a "Clean Slate". Its Program Director is Nick McKeown

Nick McKeown

Nicholas William McKeown, better known as Nick McKeown, is an English-American expert in computer networking. His career includes both education and starting companies in Silicon Valley.-Biography:Nick McKeown was born April 7, 1963 in Bedford, England....

.

Program outline

It is based on the belief that the current internet has significant deficiencies that need to be solved before it can become a unified global communication infrastructure, and that the internet's shortcomings will not be resolved by the conventional incremental and backward-compatible style of academic and industrial networking research.

The program aims to focus on unconventional, bold, and long-term research that tries to break the network's ossification

Ossification

Ossification is the process of laying down new bone material by cells called osteoblasts. It is synonymous with bone tissue formation...

. To this end, the research program is characterized by two research questions:

• "With what we know today, if we were to start again with a clean slate, how would we design a global communications infrastructure".
• "How should the Internet look in upcoming 15 years."

Program members aim to measure success in the long-term: looking back in 15 years time to see significant impact.

Program coordinators identify five key areas for research:

1. Network architecture
   Network architecture
   Network architecture is the design of a communications network. It is a framework for the specification of a network's physical components and their functional organization and configuration, its operational principles and procedures, as well as data formats used in its operation.In...
   
   
2. Heterogeneous applications
   Heterogeneous computing
   Heterogeneous computing systems refer to electronic systems that use a variety of different types of computational units. A computational unit could be a general-purpose processor , a special-purpose processor Heterogeneous computing systems refer to electronic systems that use a variety of...
   
   
3. Heterogeneous physical layer technologies
4. Security
   Internet security
   Internet security is a branch of computer security specifically related to the Internet. Its objective is to establish rules and measures to use against attacks over the Internet. The Internet represents an insecure channel for exchanging information leading to a high risk of intrusion or fraud,...
   
   
5. Economics
   Economics
   Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
   
   and policy

Program team expect these areas will evolve and perhaps change completely as the program progresses.