Priority investment area - Aim four
Aim Four: Help institutions to improve the quality, impact and productivity of academic research
| Theme |
Here and now |
Coming soon |
On the horizon |
| For immediate use by the majority of institutions |
Work that will be of most interest to innovators and early adopters with more general take up in 2-5 years |
Longer term investment that may have impact in 3-10 years |
Infrastructure |
Supporting high speed networks and investigating innovative networking technologies to provide researchers with data transport, collaborative working and interaction |
Advocating the provision of ‘broadband to the lab’ so that high-speed connectivity reaches the researchers’ workspaces with a quality of service that supports their use of research tools and data |
Enabling researchers to easily use computational and data-intensive research methods without extensive
programming, by supporting the transition from method and tool creation to easily used tools. Developing research infrastructure strategies with reduced environmental costs |
International |
Enabling UK researchers to engage with international consortia and facilities by providing gateways and inter-working standardised computational platforms |
Ensuring JISC committees and services are engaged internationally in policy and standards, and support international engagement in research at institutional level |
Developing creative research environments to help UK maintain competitive edge; attractive environments; stimulating international participation; meeting expectations of young and mobile researchers |
Research data |
Promoting the creation, use, publication and curation of research data by providing advice and guidance to UK academic community and funding pilot studies. Providing information to external users about research expertise |
Supporting the improvement of the quality and effectiveness of UK researchers’ exploitation of data and developing appropriate quality measurement |
Investigating privacy confidentiality & IPR issues of data sharing, taking into account tensions between competition and collaboration Developing, with Research Councils and others, an integrated approach to research data; including data creation, use, publishing in public archives, and enabling provision and use of persistent identifiers, links between data and articles, and aids to the consistent interpretation of data |
Collaboration |
Enabling research collaboration within and between institutions and between the academic and business sectors through Virtual Research Environments (VREs) to encourage productive research, knowledge exchange and the uptake and development of research methods, data and tools |
Developing and facilitating a community of support for research collaboration, including the business sector as appropriate |
Enabling dynamic research collaborations within and between institutions to increase the numbers engaged in productive research, to increase participation of others, eg ‘citizen science’ and to link ‘islands of excellence’. Enabling the establishment of challenge-driven research teams across disciplines, sectors and scales and supporting collaboration with business |
People |
Working with the research community to increase engagement in the use of computational and data-intensive methods, understand requirements and raise awareness |
Developing models of institutional ICT support for researchers linked with national, international and subject-specific provisions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of those provisions for researchers and providers |
Enabling lifelong professional development of researchers, reflecting a more flexible workforce/workspace and non-linear career structures to maximise potential of current staff and bring in ‘new blood’ |