At a time of unprecedented budget cuts, what role do digital technologies play in securing a future for research? That was the key question posed by JISC’s ‘Future of research?’ held at the Congress Centre in London last month. The headline answer to emerge was: by facilitating collaborations and by enabling more efficient and effective research.
Some of the keynote speakers reflect on the issues of the day in our just-released video ‘Research in a climate of cuts’. For Professor Martin Hall, speaker on efficiency and effectiveness and vice chancellor of the University of Salford, it’s essential to ‘continue to make the change towards a networked world where we can do things differently’. Professor Dame Julia Goodfellow, speaker on reputation and vice chancellor of the University of Kent reflects that digital technologies ‘are embedded in everything we [researchers] do and are absolutely essential’. For Professor Rick Trainor, vice chancellor of King’s College London who introduced the programme, JISC has a central role to play in the ‘efficient mobilisation of information’ which is key to research.
You can see Professor David Baker’s summing up of the day on the conference microsite. His points include:
- Collaboration is needed between institutions, as well as research groups: UK institutions need to pay particular attention to their counterparts in the rapidly emerging economies. Competition can spur collaboration, or be its enemy, so a useful question to ask when contemplating a new partnership is ‘what’s in it for me?’ A pilot project can help establish whether the collaboration is likely to be fruitful.
- Institutions can help researchers increase their efficiency and effectiveness by providing them with the IT services and support they need. Many institutions are now employing research facilitators to support researchers and interpret their requirements for centralised IT services. Commodity services should be centralised, but some IT should be left to researchers themselves to support. Institutions also need to pay increasing attention to good research data management which enables research data to be shared and reused: Freedom of Information requests for research data are easier to process when the data are well managed.
- Open Access to research results can help increase efficiency and effectiveness, but researchers still have concerns about changing well-established methods. Institutions and JISC should address these concerns. Digital technologies can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of arts and humanities research just as much as in the sciences and technology. IT can substantially increase the search element of research leaving researchers more time for analysis.
Research in a Climate of Cuts (4:30)
Alternative Version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8_yZqW9ltM
