Under the auspices of the highly acclaimed program for Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC) at the National Science Foundation, CHREC (pronounced "shreck") is a new national center and consortium for fundamental research in reconfigurable computing. CHREC is comprised of approximately two-dozen (and growing) organizations from academia, industry, and government with synergistic interests and goals in this field. Having recently completed a two-year development, review, and selection process at NSF, CHREC became operational in January 2007. The lead academic institution for CHREC is the University of Florida, with partner institution at the George Washington University, and pending partner institutions at Brigham Young University and Virginia Tech. Industry and government research partners are of vital importance for all NSF Centers and especially for CHREC, which features more than 20 founding members.

A broad range of goals have been defined with NSF for CHREC, including: (1) Establish the nation's first multidisciplinary research center in reconfigurable high-performance computing as a basis for long-term partnership and collaboration amongst industry, academe, and government; (2) Directly support the research needs of industry and government partners in a cost-effective manner with pooled, leveraged resources and maximized synergy; (3) Enhance the educational experience for a diverse set of high-quality graduate and undergraduate students; and (4) Advance the knowledge and technologies in this emerging field and ensure relevance of the research with rapid and effective technology transfer.