Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society

The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) is an institute operated by the State of California to facilitate the real-world application of technological research. Approved in 2000, it is part of the Governor Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation, along with the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and the California Nanosystems Institute. Headquartered at UC Berkeley, CITRIS was founded in 2001 from a desire to see innovative technologies put to practical use in improving quality of life for people. In the organization's own words, "CITRIS was created to 'shorten the pipeline' between world-class laboratory research and the creation of start-ups, larger companies, and whole industries", a mission it seeks to achieve through partnering academicians at UC Santa Cruz, UC Merced, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley with industrial researchers.

The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta’s channel system supports California's agricultural industry and provides drinking water for 22 million Californians. The Floating Sensor Network project is a collaborative effort between the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), Berkeley Lab and its National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), and UC Berkeley’s Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Electrical Engineering. The project will collect data to help researchers and scientists better understand how water flows from the Delta to pumping stations and the San Francisco Bay.