CrossGrid is a European research project in the area of Grid technologies. The project involves designing and implementing a wide range of tools and services in order to extend the functionality of computing Grids and make them more friendly for potential users (even for non-IT specialists).

The essential innovation of CrossGrid lies in development of three categories of software:
1. Applications: four applications developed as part of CrossGrid, addressing societally-important problems in medicine, flood forecasting, high energy physics and air pollution modelling. The applications are characterised by interaction with a person in a processing loop and they require responses from the computer system to an action by the person in different time scales; from real-time through intermediate to delayed, and they are simultaneously compute- as well as data-intensive.
2. Tools: software meant to aid Grid application developers. CrossGrid tools include components for benchmarking  Grid applications and predicting their performance as well as verifying the correctness of MPI code submitted for processing.
3. Services: software extending the capabilities of Grid systems themselves. These include user-friendly portals and roaming access to the Grid from any entry point (with the sole prerequisite being a functional Web browser), Grid monitoring and optimization of access to secondary and tertiary storage media.

In support of the software products listed above, the CrossGrid consortium has created a pan-European testbed, providing a high-throughput computing environment in which to run Grid applications. The testbed involves 16 sites in 9 countries, with over 200 CPUs and 4 TB of storage space.

CrossGrid partners have also amassed significant expertise in the area of Grid systems. We organize CrossGrid tutorials with live exercises, for users interested in learning more about Grid technology in general and CrossGrid products in particular.

As of October 2004, the Project is nearing its conclusion, having successfully passed its penultimate EU review. All CrossGrid products have entered their final testing phase and are ready for exploitation.