JISC

UK education is to benefit from over £7 million in grants and funding opportunities, as JISC launches its investment plan for the academic year 2009/2010. UK education is to benefit from over £7 million in grants and funding opportunities
 
Over the next nine months JISC will be investing in a range of projects across universities and colleges to support innovation in research, teaching and learning to aid the management of institutions. Projects will range from 12 months to three years in duration. 

Among the areas JISC will be funding are:

• Cloud computing for research
• Learning and teaching innovation grants
• Business modelling and sustainability for online content and collections to develop best practice
• A ‘digipedia’ prototype to bring together resources, standards, best practise and expertise on the digital content lifecycle
• Shared best practice for university researchers working with business and community groups
• Access and identity management

Alice Colban, head of finance at JISC says, “We fund projects across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland through grant funding opportunities to universities and colleges.

“In 2008/09 JISC funded over 300 projects across 24 programmes and during this academic year JISC will invest over £7 million to advance the innovative use of digital technologies in UK colleges and universities. Grants vary from £20,000 to over £1 million, which are allocated through a bidding process.” 

Sarah Sherman, Bloomsbury Learning Environment Service Manager for the Bloomsbury Colleges explains the difference that being part of a JISC project made for her consortium, “The projects we have been involved with enabled people to take a simple step forward in trying something new with technology. 

“With JISC funding we were able to employ a full time project officer to work with all six colleges encouraging collaboration across the entire consortium. The shared funding meant that the benefits of the project were felt by a wider number of people than would have been possible if a single institution was funded,” she added.

The Millon+  group report ‘From Inputs to Impact: A Study of the Impact of Jisc Funding on Universities’, states that even relatively modest awards of £30,000 can have a ‘profound impact’ and that 44 per cent of the universities in the study have had unanticipated benefits from JISC funding.

See JISC's funding roadmap

See the guide to bidding

Sign up to JISC Announce to receive an email when the funding calls are released. Email jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk with your first name, last name and include ‘join jisc-announce’ in the subject heading.