Archive roadmap of grant funding calls : JISC

Archive roadmap of grant funding calls

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(August 08 – July 09)

Only eligible UK Higher Education & Further Education institutions are able to lead bids in response to JISC Grant funding opportunities.

Grant funding opportunities are emailed on ‘jisc-announce. To join jisc-announce, email: jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk with the line: join jisc-announce yourfirstname yourlastname or go to JISC mail AnnounceJISC receives core funding on an annual basis (August - July) from its core funders (HEFCE, SFC, HEFCW, DCELLS & DEL N.I.). In addition to this, JISC receives capital funding for new innovation programmes from HEFCE and HEFCW. The funding (whether core or capital) used for each activity described below impacts on the eligibility of HE/FE institutions from the devolved countries.

Dates & Funding	Activity	Importance to your institution
Organisational Support
Released Oct 08 Funding £3 m (up to 15 projects at 100-300k per project) Start Mar/April 2009 Duration 18 months - 2 years	Institutional Innovation: Lifelong Learning & Workforce Development 10 projects based in institutions or partnerships of institutions implementing the use of appropriate technologies and strategic processes to plan, recruit/admit to, deliver and support HE-level learning services (which could include postgraduate level learning) that meet the needs of learners in the workplace, and of their employers. The projects should produce a workable solution at a (cross-) institutional level, and include aspects of strategic process review and change as well as technical implementation and integration, and system interoperability. These projects would need to include close relationships with employers and/or bodies such as sector skills councils and professional bodies. Eligibility to bid Proposals may be submitted by HE institutions funded by HEFCE and HEFCW. FE institutions in England that teach HE to more than 400 FTEs are also eligible to bid provided proposals demonstrate work that supports the HE in FE agenda. (Updated: 26 November 2008. Previously entitled 'Institutional Innovation - Lifelong Learning and Employer Engagement.)	The population is participating in education in increasingly complex ways throughout their lives, and demographic changes are reinforcing this phenomenon. Higher education in the UK has seen unprecedented expansion in numbers, and is enrolling students with a diversity of previous experiences and skills. Employers are expecting employees to continuously update their professional competences, including their capacities to make optimum use of information and communication technologies. The Leitch Review of Skills and the Government’s subsequent publication of ‘Innovation Nation’ and the World Class Skills implementation plan challenge institutions to deliver work-based learning and higher level skills for work, including demand-led continuing professional development modules. The objective is to contribute towards Leitch targets, which are seen as essential to advance the nation’s skill levels, and enhance opportunities for innovation. However, educational institutions may not have the processes and technical infrastructures in place to support these priorities. Of interest to staff responsible for Lifelong learning; continuing professional development, work-based learning and workforce development services; employer engagement and business and community engagement strategies; strategic partnerships.
Released March 09 Funding 910k (16 projects at 50k-60k per project Start July 09 Duration 9-12 months	Business and Community Engagement (BCE) and Organisational Support Activities Projects to support Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the BCE context, and in support of student lifecycle relationship management: CRM to support BCE 10 pilot projects to be undertaken in institutions reflecting different stages of CRM usage maturity – peripheral, tactical and strategic (£60,000 per pilot). The pilots will look at process mapping and self analysis tools currently being developed as an initial phase of activity intended to enable institutions to assess and manage risks and benefits of an enterprise-wide approach to customer relationship management. In addition, a support and facilitation project (£60,000) to guide application of the tools and extract/share lessons learned (total £660,000). Student lifecycle relationship management 4 pilot projects (12 months) to be undertaken in institutions (£50,000 per pilot) to integrate existing technologies to provide end-to-end student relationship management, in support of institutions’ strategies and policies on marketing, student attraction, monitoring and alumni ‘after care’. In addition, a synthesis and supporting study (£50,000) to synthesise the findings from the pilot projects to provide advice and guidance to the wider sector (total £250,000) Eligibility to bid All UK HEIs, FE Colleges in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).	BCE includes knowledge transfer/exchange, innovation and employer engagement, themes high on the Government’s agenda, reflected in ‘Innovation Nation’ and key reviews such as Sainsbury, Leitch and Foster, which are drivers of national policy. BCE supports HEIs and FECs in rising to these challenges to deliver benefits to the economy and society and enrich the institutions themselves. As institutions seek to enhance their profile and exploit their knowledge and expertise assets, relationships and interactions with clients and partners are extending in both depth and breadth. A strategic CRM approach is needed to ensure that, before expensive CRM system investments are made, the key processes are managed consistently enterprisewide. Student lifecycle relationship management – i.e. the development of strategies and policies, and use of ICT, to support institutions establish, build and manage relationships with students through a range of interactions and engagements they have with them across the lifecycle of their involvement with them – is an important and commercially critical set of activities that all institutions need to address in an increasingly competitive environment. Of interest to staff responsible for Strategic partnerships, external affairs, business and community engagement, knowledge transfer and exchange, research commercialisation, business development, enterprise, lifelong learning, employer engagement and workforce development, student recruitment and admissions, induction, support and retention, and alumni relationships

Information Environment

Released Oct 08 Funding £200,000 Start Jan 09 Duration 18 months	Identity Management Toolkit An analysis of Identity Management within the HE and FE sectors, focusing on effective real world solutions including case studies of effective solutions. This analysis would consider: Business Processes Development of a template for auditing and self-assessment of existing Identity Management What more can be learned from existing JISC work in this area Other relevant research and initiatives (such as Access Management Transition Programme, e-Framework and Internet2) Systems Solutions Eligibility to bid All English and Welsh HEIs. FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda.	The analysis will lead to the development of an 'Identity Management Toolkit' (similar to the UCISA Information Security Toolkit). The toolkit would help institutions to: Conduct a self-assessment of current Identity Management processes and systems Identify possible system solutions Be aware of best practice and case study comparators Identify potential improvements to business processes Develop local Identity Management roadmaps Identify opportunities for closer working and shared approaches with others Of interest to staff responsible for ICT staff responsible for institutional access management systems, authentication services, directory services, student/staff record management systems or other identity management systems.
Released Nov 08 Funding £3M (projects ranging in size between £75,000 -£250,000) Start March/April 09 Duration Up to 2 years	Repository Innovation: Systems and network service Integration Projects that will improve the user experience by establishing join-up with: other institutional systems e.g. authoring environments, conference systems, journal, research management system, virtual learning environments etc. and network services such as Amazon Web Services, Google services, web repositories e.g. Flickr or other external shared infrastructure. The projects support the effective development of ICT infrastructure to underpin research and learning and teaching. Eligibility to bid All UK HEIs, FE Colleges in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).	Digital repositories and systems that support the creation, access and use of research and learning materials are critical to improving research and learning and the management of these core activities. Enhancing interoperability is essential to effective use and management of these assets, especially as user expectations and behaviour changes and institutions need to keep in step. At a national level developing these systems and their integration with other network services is one way to contribute to an innovative knowledge economy. Of interest to staff responsible for Information services and systems, IT, research management, learning activity and technology and research or learning departments.
Released Nov 08 Funding £1.3M 10 start-up at £30K and 10 enhancement at £100K. Matched funding from the institution is a requirement. Start March/April 09 Duration 2 years	Repository Start-up and enhancement Projects to establish a new digital repository or to improve existing repository infrastructure. An Open Access model is preferable but it is recognised that in some cases access restrictions may be required. These projects support the effective development of ICT infrastructure to underpin research and learning and teaching. The projects should support the management and use of research data, research papers, learning materials etc. Eligibility to bid English and Welsh HEIs. (FE Colleges and HEIs in Scotland and Northern Ireland can partner in projects but cannot lead them)	Digital Repository systems help to manage the digital assets (research papers, research data, learning materials, grey literature etc.) produced by an institution as well as enabling the sharing of these assets more widely, both within the institution and where permissible or Open Access to those outside the institution. Of interest to staff responsible for Information services and systems, IT, research management, learning activity and technology and research or learning departments.
Released Nov 08/Mar 09 Funding £0.5M Starts March/April 09/May 09 Duration 3-6 months	Repository & digital resources interoperability demonstrators AND rapid innovation projects Small-scale projects targeted specifically at technical development. This is to allow testing and trials but without the expectation of the code necessarily being sustained. These projects would participate in the ‘JISC’ developer community in order to share learning from the work and ensure it is captured and that it contributes to shared innovation and practice. Eligibility to bid English and Welsh HEIs. (FE Colleges and HEIs in Scotland and Northern Ireland can partner in projects but cannot lead them)	To help make repository systems as interoperable as possible so they can share content and support a wider variety of use cases, there is a need to trial new approaches based on various technologies and specifications. This work will help to share approaches and technical solutions between university developers as well as contributing to solutions that will help to achieve more effective interoperability across the distributed network of repositories. Of interest to staff responsible for Information services and systems, IT and technical developers across the institution.
Released Nov 08 Funding £0.9M Start March/April 09 Duration 18 months (approx 4 projects)	Repository Preservation environments These projects are focused specifically on enhancing the preservation capabilities of digital repositories by implementing preservation functions and policies. There are a number of solutions that have been developed over the past few years and these projects will use these existing solutions and where necessary improve them and identify gaps that need addressed. These projects support the effective development of ICT infrastructure to underpin research and learning and teaching. Eligibility to bid All UK HEIs, FE Colleges in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).	As more information is produced digitally there are enormous benefits in access, re-use and analysis for research and learning. However there are important curation and preservation decisions and functions required in the stewardship of this information. These projects will help institutions implement the latest tools and further develop solutions for the preservation of resources. Of interest to staff responsible for Information services and systems, IT and records/information management.
Released Nov 08 Funding £0.9M Starts March/April 09 Duration 18 months (approx 4 projects)	Pathfinder projects: In automatic metadata and/or text-mining Automatic metadata and text-mining are two technical approaches that show potential in the management and use of digital information. There is a need to better understand what is possible and the limitations of current solutions. These are pathfinder projects to help further understanding and identify opportunities that should be further exploited as part of the ICT infrastructure for education and research. Text-mining can support analysis and the finding of new knowledge and relationships. Automatic metadata can help to offer a scalable solution to metadata creation as well as helping with consistency or enrichment of metadata; it can be derived from content or created at the point of object creation or during object use. Eligibility to bid All UK HEIs, FE Colleges in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).	As part of research and learning a large amount of information is created. In order to exploit it fully for research, learning and administration automatic metadata creation and the use of text mining show promise. Two main areas where these techniques might help are in streamlining processes and in realising the full value from resources for use in research and education. These projects will help to implement and evaluate these techniques against institutional use cases. Of interest to staff responsible for Information services and systems, IT, computing, records/information management and research.
Released Mar 09 Funding £15,000 - £40,000 for 6 month projects (up to 30 projects) Starts June 09 Duration 6 months(up to 30 projects)	Grant Funding Call 03/09 Rapid Innovation The Joint Information Systems Committee(JISC) invites institutions to submit funding proposals for grants to fund technical rapid innovation projects addressing the following priority areas: Mashups of open data Aggregating tags and feeds Semantic web/ linked data Data search Visualisation Personalisation Mobile Technologies Lightweight Shared Infrastructure Services User Interface Design Eligibility to bid All HE institutions funded via HEFCE, SFC, HEFCW and DEL Northern Ireland, and by FE institutions funded via SFC, DCELLS Wales and DEL Northern Ireland. FE institutions in England that teach HE to more than 400 FTEs are also eligible to bid provided proposals demonstrate how the work supports the HE in FE agenda.	Of interest to Pro Vice Chancellors for (e)Learning and (e)Research, Directors of Information Services and Systems, Learning Resource Managers, Librarians and Archivists, Principal Investigators in Research Teams, Learning Technologists Heads of e-Learning and ILT Managers

Learning and Teaching

Released Open & ongoing call for 3 years with fixed assessment points. Next assessment point July 09 Funding £75,000 per project (a minimum of 6 projects will be funded each year) Duration 1 year	Learning and Teaching Innovation Grants Invites outline proposals only in the first instance for one year projects and activities that fit with the vision, outcomes and principles of the JISC e-Learning programme and support innovative approaches to learning and teaching identify areas of activity suitable for further investment and enhance the overall educational experience of students throughout the sector by identifying and solving common problems that are not covered by existing or planned JISC programmes. This call is wide ranging and allows institutions to submit projects dealing with any aspect of e-learning. Eligibility to bid All UK HEIs, FE Colleges in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).	It is essential for the sector to continue to innovate to support the future delivery of learning and teaching. Projects must support improved understanding at practitioner and senior management level of the potential of ICT to support learning and teaching; the stimulation of positive and informed change in the sector through the enhanced capacity; knowledge and skills around the use of ICT to support learning and teaching; support for personalisation, and pedagogic and institutional diversity, at departmental, institutional, regional or national levels; or support for delivery of national policy on lifelong, workplace and flexible learning and the provision of strategic leadership to the sector. Of interest to staff responsible for Pro Vice Chancellors for (e)Learning, Directors of Information Services & Systems, Learning Resource Managers, Librarians and Archivists, Principal Investigators in Research Teams, Learning Technologists, Heads of e-Learning and ILT Managers.

Research
Released Nov 08 Funding £3M Starts Apr 09 Duration 2 years	Virtual Research Environments (VRE) Phase 3 VRE3 will build on the first 2 phases of the VRE programme. VRE3 will further develop research tools and interoperability, particularly those related research lifecycle resource discovery, repositories and publishing. This will be joint-funded work with relevant strands of the Repositories programme. As part of the process of enabling VREs to become self-sustaining, VRE3 will also explore link-up with institutional learning and administrative systems. This will be joint-funded work with the Institutional Exemplars programme Eligibility to bid All UK HEIs and FE Colleges in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).	VREs are increasingly recognised as a means of enabling researchers to manage a wide range of resources, both local and remote, from their desktops. Evidence to date suggests that use of VREs can significantly improve the efficiency of the research process and, in some cases, to enable entirely new types of collaborative research. The aim now is to help embed VREs within institutions and make them self-sustaining, by linking them to other institutional systems such as research administration and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). This will also help to enable the re-use of research materials in a learning and teaching context. Of interest to staff responsible for Pro-Vice Chancellors for Research; Principal Investigators in Research Teams; staff responsible for information services and systems, IT, research management, learning activity and technology and research or learning departments.
Released June 09 Funding £1.5M (up tp £250,000 per project for 6-8 projects) Starts Oct 09 Duration Up to 18 months ending 31 March 2011	Data Management Infrastructure The objective of this Call is to provide the UK Higher Education sector with pilot implementations of solutions for research data management within or across institutions. Funding is available for projects to identify requirements to manage data created by researchers within an institution, or across a group of institutions, and to deploy a pilot data management infrastructure to address these requirements. Projects may wish to work at an institutional, faculty, department or research group level. Equally, perhaps in order to realise the benefits of data sharing, projects may wish to with researchers across a consortium of institutions etc. Whatever approach is taken, it will be important that due attention is paid to aligning the Digital Curation Lifecycle Model to researchers’ workflows. Furthermore, in order to contribute to generating a broad picture of requirements, costs and business models, it will be expected that funded projects 1) should report on their requirements analysis to a workshop to be held in April 2010, and 2) should produce by the end of the project a business model for the implemented solution for data management. As a principal component of JISC’s Research Data Programme 2009-11, the present Call seeks to address a strategic requirement for UK HE to improve its data management capability and better to understand how this may be achieved. Eligibility to bid Proposals may be submitted by Higher Education (HE) Institutions funded by HEFCE or HEFCW. HE and FE institutions in Northern Ireland and Scotland and FE institutions in Wales are not eligible to bid but may be involved as partners in proposals led by HE institutions funded by HEFCE or HEFCW.	Of interest to staff responsible for Pro Vice Chancellors for (e)Research; Directors of Information Services and Systems; Learning Resource Managers; Librarians and Archivists; Principal Investigators in Research Teams.

Content
Released Dec 08 Funding £300,000 NEH will provide matched funding of $600,000 Starts Aug 09 Duration 18-24 months ending no later than Mar 11	JISC-NEH Transatlantic Digitisation Following on from the success of the initial initiative in 2007, the JISC and NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) would like to fund 2-3 larger digitisation projects in the Humanities. Eligibility to bid All English and Welsh HEIs. FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda.	This initiative will offer researcher and collection owners the opportunity to forge and enhance relationships with US universities and develop digital tools and resources that will have an international impact. Of interest to staff responsible for Pro-Vice Chancellors for e-learning and e-research; Directors of Information Services and Systems; Learning Resource Managers, Librarians & Archivists; Principal Investigators in Research Teams: Learning Technologies; Heads of e-Learning and ILT Managers.
Released Jan 09 Funding £200,000 Starts Jan 10 Duration 15 months	Digging Into Data Challenge International multi-agency competition to explore innovative use of large historical corpora. Several international agencies will also be issuing simultaneous invitations. Eligibility to bid All English and Welsh HEIs. FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda.	This initiative will give researchers an opportunity to demonstrate cutting edge use of large-scale datasets with an impact at international level. Of interest to staff responsible for Pro-Vice Chancellors for e-learning and e-research; Directors of Information Services and Systems; Learning Resource Managers, Librarians & Archivists; Principal Investigators in Research Teams: Learning Technologies; Heads of e-Learning and ILT Managers.
Released March 09 Funding £1,000,000 Starts Sept 09 Duration 15-18 months	Institutional Skills and Strategies A range of projects exploring how digitisation strategies and processes can be embedded within institutions and regional consortia of public sector bodies. Note This will be a joint call with the Clustering, Theming and Enhancing call. Eligibility to bid All English and Welsh HEIs. (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).	This initiative will offer university librarians, archives and other collections curators the opportunity to identify strategies for ensuring sustainable digitisation for their collections. Of interest to staff responsible for Pro-Vice Chancellors for e-learning and e-research; Directors of Information Services and Systems; Learning Resource Managers, Librarians & Archivists; Principal Investigators in Research Teams: Learning Technologies; Heads of e-Learning and ILT Managers
Released March 09 Funding £1,100,000 Starts Sept 09 Duration 15-18 months	Clustering, Theming and Enhancing This strand will continue on the work of the projects funded under Enriching Digital Resources, investigating how existing digital resources can be enriched by improved metadata, user interfaces, resource discovery or by aggregation with similar content. Note This will be a joint call with the Institutional Skills and Strategies call. Eligibility to Bid All English and Welsh HEIs (FE colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports HE in FE agenda.	Of interest to staff responsible for Pro-Vice Chancellors for e-learning and e-research; Directors of Information Services and systems; Learning Resource Managers, Librarians & Archivists; Principal Investigators in Research Teams; Learning Technologies; Head of e-Learning and ILT Managers.
Released March 09 Funding £275,000 Starts June 2009 Duration 18 months	Catalogues of Islamic Manuscripts One of the recommendations from the University of Exeter's review of user requirements for digitised resources in Islamic Studies was the creation of online version of the catalogues of Islamic manuscripts in UK Collections. This JISC will be funding work in this area, with the creation of outputs that will provide the initial impetus for a union catalogue of Islamic manuscripts in UK Collections. Eligibility to Bid Proposals may be submitted by any UK-based institution or organisation with collections of significant value to higher education and research in England or the related expertise in managing such collections.	Of Interest to Staff Responsible for Pro-Vice Chancellors for e-learning and e-research; Directors of Information Services and Systems; Learning Resource Managers, Libraries and Archivists; Principal Investigators in relevant Research Teams: Head of e-Learning and ILT Managers.

Dates & Funding

Activity

Importance to your institution

Organisational Support

Released
Oct 08

Funding
£3 m
(up to 15 projects at 100-300k per project)

Start
Mar/April 2009

Duration
18 months - 2 years

Institutional Innovation: Lifelong Learning & Workforce Development

10 projects based in institutions or partnerships of institutions implementing the use of appropriate technologies and strategic processes to plan, recruit/admit to, deliver and support HE-level learning services (which could include postgraduate level learning) that meet the needs of learners in the workplace, and of their employers.

The projects should produce a workable solution at a (cross-) institutional level, and include aspects of strategic process review and change as well as technical implementation and integration, and system interoperability. These projects would need to include close relationships with employers and/or bodies such as sector skills councils and professional bodies.

Eligibility to bid

Proposals may be submitted by HE institutions funded by HEFCE and HEFCW. FE institutions in England that teach HE to more than 400 FTEs are also eligible to bid provided proposals demonstrate work that supports the HE in FE agenda.

(Updated: 26 November 2008. Previously entitled 'Institutional Innovation - Lifelong Learning and Employer Engagement.)

The population is participating in education in increasingly complex ways throughout their lives, and demographic changes are reinforcing this phenomenon. Higher education in the UK has seen unprecedented expansion in numbers, and is enrolling students with a diversity of previous experiences and skills. Employers are expecting employees to continuously update their professional competences, including their capacities to make optimum use of information and communication technologies.

The Leitch Review of Skills and the Government’s subsequent publication of ‘Innovation Nation’ and the World Class Skills implementation plan challenge institutions to deliver work-based learning and higher level skills for work, including demand-led continuing professional development modules. The objective is to contribute towards Leitch targets, which are seen as essential to advance the nation’s skill levels, and enhance opportunities for innovation. However, educational institutions may not have the processes and technical infrastructures in place to support these priorities.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Lifelong learning; continuing professional development, work-based learning and workforce development services; employer engagement and business and community engagement strategies; strategic partnerships.

Released March 09

Funding
910k (16 projects at 50k-60k per project

Start
July 09

Duration
9-12 months

Business and Community Engagement (BCE) and Organisational Support Activities

Projects to support Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the BCE context, and in support of student lifecycle relationship management:

CRM to support BCE

10 pilot projects to be undertaken in institutions reflecting different stages of CRM usage maturity – peripheral, tactical and strategic (£60,000 per pilot). The pilots will look at process mapping and self analysis tools currently being developed as an initial phase of activity intended to enable institutions to assess and manage risks and benefits of an enterprise-wide approach to customer relationship management. In addition, a support and facilitation project (£60,000) to guide application of the tools and extract/share lessons learned (total £660,000).

Student lifecycle relationship management

4 pilot projects (12 months) to be undertaken in institutions (£50,000 per pilot) to integrate existing technologies to provide end-to-end student relationship management, in support of institutions’ strategies and policies on marketing, student attraction, monitoring and alumni ‘after care’. In addition, a synthesis and supporting study (£50,000) to synthesise the findings from the pilot projects to provide advice and guidance to the wider sector (total £250,000)

Eligibility to bid

All UK HEIs, FE Colleges in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).

BCE includes knowledge transfer/exchange, innovation and employer engagement, themes high on the Government’s agenda, reflected in ‘Innovation Nation’ and key reviews such as Sainsbury, Leitch and Foster, which are drivers of national policy. BCE supports HEIs and FECs in rising to these challenges to deliver benefits to the economy and society and enrich the institutions themselves.

As institutions seek to enhance their profile and exploit their knowledge and expertise assets, relationships and interactions with clients and partners are extending in both depth and breadth. A strategic CRM approach is needed to ensure that, before expensive CRM system investments are made, the key processes are managed consistently enterprisewide.

Student lifecycle relationship management – i.e. the development of strategies and policies, and use of ICT, to support institutions establish, build and manage relationships with students through a range of interactions and engagements they have with them across the lifecycle of their involvement with them – is an important and commercially critical set of activities that all institutions need to address in an increasingly competitive environment.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Strategic partnerships, external affairs, business and community engagement, knowledge transfer and exchange, research commercialisation, business development, enterprise, lifelong learning, employer engagement and workforce development, student recruitment and admissions, induction, support and retention, and alumni relationships

Information Environment

Released
Oct 08

Funding
£200,000

Start
Jan 09

Duration
18 months

Identity Management Toolkit

An analysis of Identity Management within the HE and FE sectors, focusing on effective real world solutions including case studies of effective solutions. This analysis would consider:

Business Processes
Development of a template for auditing and self-assessment of existing Identity Management
What more can be learned from existing JISC work in this area
Other relevant research and initiatives (such as Access Management Transition Programme, e-Framework and Internet2)
Systems Solutions

Eligibility to bid

All English and Welsh HEIs. FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda.

The analysis will lead to the development of an 'Identity Management Toolkit' (similar to the UCISA Information Security Toolkit). The toolkit would help institutions to:

Conduct a self-assessment of current Identity Management processes and systems
Identify possible system solutions
Be aware of best practice and case study comparators
Identify potential improvements to business processes
Develop local Identity Management roadmaps
Identify opportunities for closer working and shared approaches with others

Of interest to staff responsible for

ICT staff responsible for institutional access management systems, authentication services, directory services, student/staff record management systems or other identity management systems.

Released
Nov 08

Funding
£3M (projects ranging in size between £75,000 -£250,000)

Start
March/April 09

Duration
Up to 2 years

Repository Innovation: Systems and network service Integration

Projects that will improve the user experience by establishing join-up with: other institutional systems e.g. authoring environments, conference systems, journal, research management system, virtual learning environments etc. and network services such as Amazon Web Services, Google services, web repositories e.g. Flickr or other external shared infrastructure.

The projects support the effective development of ICT infrastructure to underpin research and learning and teaching.

Eligibility to bid

Digital repositories and systems that support the creation, access and use of research and learning materials are critical to improving research and learning and the management of these core activities. Enhancing interoperability is essential to effective use and management of these assets, especially as user expectations and behaviour changes and institutions need to keep in step.

At a national level developing these systems and their integration with other network services is one way to contribute to an innovative knowledge economy.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Information services and systems, IT, research management, learning activity and technology and research or learning departments.

Released
Nov 08

Funding
£1.3M

10 start-up at £30K and 10 enhancement at £100K.

Matched funding from the institution is a requirement.

Start
March/April 09

Duration
2 years

Repository Start-up and enhancement

Projects to establish a new digital repository or to improve existing repository infrastructure. An Open Access model is preferable but it is recognised that in some cases access restrictions may be required.

These projects support the effective development of ICT infrastructure to underpin research and learning and teaching. The projects should support the management and use of research data, research papers, learning materials etc.

Eligibility to bid

English and Welsh HEIs. (FE Colleges and HEIs in Scotland and Northern Ireland can partner in projects but cannot lead them)

Digital Repository systems help to manage the digital assets (research papers, research data, learning materials, grey literature etc.) produced by an institution as well as enabling the sharing of these assets more widely, both within the institution and where permissible or Open Access to those outside the institution.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Information services and systems, IT, research management, learning activity and technology and research or learning departments.

Released
Nov 08/Mar 09

Funding
£0.5M

Starts
March/April 09/May 09

Duration
3-6 months

Repository & digital resources interoperability demonstrators AND rapid innovation projects

Small-scale projects targeted specifically at technical development. This is to allow testing and trials but without the expectation of the code necessarily being sustained. These projects would participate in the ‘JISC’ developer community in order to share learning from the work and ensure it is captured and that it contributes to shared innovation and practice.

Eligibility to bid

English and Welsh HEIs. (FE Colleges and HEIs in Scotland and Northern Ireland can partner in projects but cannot lead them)

To help make repository systems as interoperable as possible so they can share content and support a wider variety of use cases, there is a need to trial new approaches based on various technologies and specifications. This work will help to share approaches and technical solutions between university developers as well as contributing to solutions that will help to achieve more effective interoperability across the distributed network of repositories.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Information services and systems, IT and technical developers across the institution.

Released
Nov 08

Funding
£0.9M

Start
March/April 09

Duration
18 months (approx 4 projects)

Repository Preservation environments

These projects are focused specifically on enhancing the preservation capabilities of digital repositories by implementing preservation functions and policies. There are a number of solutions that have been developed over the past few years and these projects will use these existing solutions and where necessary improve them and identify gaps that need addressed. These projects support the effective development of ICT infrastructure to underpin research and learning and teaching.

Eligibility to bid

As more information is produced digitally there are enormous benefits in access, re-use and analysis for research and learning. However there are important curation and preservation decisions and functions required in the stewardship of this information. These projects will help institutions implement the latest tools and further develop solutions for the preservation of resources.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Information services and systems, IT and records/information management.

Released
Nov 08

Funding
£0.9M

Starts
March/April 09

Duration
18 months (approx 4 projects)

Pathfinder projects: In automatic metadata and/or text-mining

Automatic metadata and text-mining are two technical approaches that show potential in the management and use of digital information. There is a need to better understand what is possible and the limitations of current solutions. These are pathfinder projects to help further understanding and identify opportunities that should be further exploited as part of the ICT infrastructure for education and research.

Text-mining can support analysis and the finding of new knowledge and relationships. Automatic metadata can help to offer a scalable solution to metadata creation as well as helping with consistency or enrichment of metadata; it can be derived from content or created at the point of object creation or during object use.

Eligibility to bid

As part of research and learning a large amount of information is created. In order to exploit it fully for research, learning and administration automatic metadata creation and the use of text mining show promise. Two main areas where these techniques might help are in streamlining processes and in realising the full value from resources for use in research and education.

These projects will help to implement and evaluate these techniques against institutional use cases.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Information services and systems, IT, computing, records/information management and research.

Released
Mar 09

Funding
£15,000 - £40,000 for 6 month projects (up to 30 projects)

Starts
June 09

Duration
6 months(up to 30 projects)

Grant Funding Call 03/09 Rapid Innovation

The Joint Information Systems Committee(JISC) invites institutions to submit funding proposals for grants to fund technical rapid innovation projects addressing the following priority areas:

Mashups of open data
Aggregating tags and feeds
Semantic web/ linked data
Data search
Visualisation
Personalisation
Mobile Technologies
Lightweight Shared Infrastructure Services
User Interface Design

Eligibility to bid

All HE institutions funded via HEFCE, SFC, HEFCW and DEL Northern Ireland, and by FE institutions funded via SFC, DCELLS Wales and DEL Northern Ireland. FE institutions in England that teach HE to more than 400 FTEs are also eligible to bid provided proposals demonstrate how the work supports the HE in FE agenda.

Of interest to

Pro Vice Chancellors for (e)Learning and (e)Research, Directors of Information Services and Systems, Learning Resource Managers, Librarians and Archivists, Principal Investigators in Research Teams, Learning Technologists
Heads of e-Learning and ILT Managers

Learning and Teaching

Released
Open & ongoing call for 3 years with fixed assessment points. Next assessment point July 09

Funding
£75,000 per project (a minimum of 6 projects will be funded each year)

Duration
1 year

Learning and Teaching Innovation Grants

Invites outline proposals only in the first instance for one year projects and activities that fit with the vision, outcomes and principles of the JISC e-Learning programme and support innovative approaches to learning and teaching identify areas of activity suitable for further investment and enhance the overall educational experience of students throughout the sector by identifying and solving common problems that are not covered by existing or planned JISC programmes. This call is wide ranging and allows institutions to submit projects dealing with any aspect of e-learning.

Eligibility to bid

It is essential for the sector to continue to innovate to support the future delivery of learning and teaching. Projects must support improved understanding at practitioner and senior management level of the potential of ICT to support learning and teaching; the stimulation of positive and informed change in the sector through the enhanced capacity; knowledge and skills around the use of ICT to support learning and teaching; support for personalisation, and pedagogic and institutional diversity, at departmental, institutional, regional or national levels; or support for delivery of national policy on lifelong, workplace and flexible learning and the provision of strategic leadership to the sector.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Pro Vice Chancellors for (e)Learning, Directors of Information Services & Systems,
Learning Resource Managers, Librarians and Archivists, Principal Investigators in Research Teams, Learning Technologists, Heads of e-Learning and ILT Managers.

Research

Released
Nov 08

Funding
£3M

Starts
Apr 09

Duration
2 years

Virtual Research Environments (VRE) Phase 3

VRE3 will build on the first 2 phases of the VRE programme. VRE3 will further develop research tools and interoperability, particularly those related research lifecycle resource discovery, repositories and publishing. This will be joint-funded work with relevant strands of the Repositories programme. As part of the process of enabling VREs to become self-sustaining, VRE3 will also explore link-up with institutional learning and administrative systems. This will be joint-funded work with the Institutional Exemplars programme

Eligibility to bid

All UK HEIs and FE Colleges in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
(FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).

VREs are increasingly recognised as a means of enabling researchers to manage a wide range of resources, both local and remote, from their desktops. Evidence to date suggests that use of VREs can significantly improve the efficiency of the research process and, in some cases, to enable entirely new types of collaborative research.

The aim now is to help embed VREs within institutions and make them self-sustaining, by linking them to other institutional systems such as research administration and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). This will also help to enable the re-use of research materials in a learning and teaching context.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Pro-Vice Chancellors for Research; Principal Investigators in Research Teams; staff responsible for information services and systems, IT, research management, learning activity and technology and research or learning departments.

Released
June 09

Funding
£1.5M (up tp £250,000 per project for 6-8 projects)

Starts
Oct 09

Duration
Up to 18 months ending 31 March 2011

Data Management Infrastructure

The objective of this Call is to provide the UK Higher Education sector with pilot implementations of solutions for research data management within or across institutions. Funding is available for projects to identify requirements to manage data created by researchers within an institution, or across a group of institutions, and to deploy a pilot data management infrastructure to address these requirements.

Projects may wish to work at an institutional, faculty, department or research group level. Equally, perhaps in order to realise the benefits of data sharing, projects may wish to with researchers across a consortium of institutions etc. Whatever approach is taken, it will be important that due attention is paid to aligning the Digital Curation Lifecycle Model to researchers’ workflows. Furthermore, in order to contribute to generating a broad picture of requirements, costs and business models, it will be expected that funded projects 1) should report on their requirements analysis to a workshop to be held in April 2010, and 2) should produce by the end of the project a business model for the implemented solution for data management.

As a principal component of JISC’s Research Data Programme 2009-11, the present Call seeks to address a strategic requirement for UK HE to improve its data management capability and better to understand how this may be achieved.

Eligibility to bid

Proposals may be submitted by Higher Education (HE) Institutions funded by HEFCE or HEFCW. HE and FE institutions in Northern Ireland and Scotland and FE institutions in Wales are not eligible to bid but may be involved as partners in proposals led by HE institutions funded by HEFCE or HEFCW.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Pro Vice Chancellors for (e)Research; Directors of Information Services and Systems; Learning Resource Managers; Librarians and Archivists; Principal Investigators in Research Teams.

Content

Released
Dec 08

Funding
£300,000
NEH will provide matched funding of $600,000

Starts
Aug 09

Duration
18-24 months ending no later than Mar 11

JISC-NEH Transatlantic Digitisation

Following on from the success of the initial initiative in 2007, the JISC and NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) would like to fund 2-3 larger digitisation projects in the Humanities.

Eligibility to bid

All English and Welsh HEIs. FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda.

This initiative will offer researcher and collection owners the opportunity to forge and enhance relationships with US universities and develop digital tools and resources that will have an international impact.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Pro-Vice Chancellors for e-learning and e-research; Directors of Information Services and Systems; Learning Resource Managers, Librarians & Archivists; Principal Investigators in Research Teams: Learning Technologies; Heads of e-Learning and ILT Managers.

Released
Jan 09

Funding
£200,000

Starts
Jan 10

Duration
15 months

Digging Into Data Challenge

International multi-agency competition to explore innovative use of large historical corpora. Several international agencies will also be issuing simultaneous invitations.

Eligibility to bid

All English and Welsh HEIs. FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda.

This initiative will give researchers an opportunity to demonstrate cutting edge use of large-scale datasets with an impact at international level.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Released
March 09

Funding £1,000,000

Starts
Sept 09

Duration 15-18 months

Institutional Skills and Strategies

A range of projects exploring how digitisation strategies and processes can be embedded within institutions and regional consortia of public sector bodies.

Note This will be a joint call with the Clustering, Theming and Enhancing call.

Eligibility to bid

All English and Welsh HEIs. (FE Colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports the HE in FE agenda).

This initiative will offer university librarians, archives and other collections curators the opportunity to identify strategies for ensuring sustainable digitisation for their collections.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Released March 09

Funding £1,100,000

Starts Sept 09

Duration 15-18 months

Clustering, Theming and Enhancing

This strand will continue on the work of the projects funded under Enriching Digital Resources, investigating how existing digital resources can be enriched by improved metadata, user interfaces, resource discovery or by aggregation with similar content.

Note This will be a joint call with the Institutional Skills and Strategies call.

Eligibility to Bid

All English and Welsh HEIs (FE colleges in England that teach HE to 400+ FTEs are also eligible provided it can be demonstrated that the bid supports HE in FE agenda.

Of interest to staff responsible for

Pro-Vice Chancellors for e-learning and e-research; Directors of Information Services and systems; Learning Resource Managers, Librarians & Archivists; Principal Investigators in Research Teams; Learning Technologies; Head of e-Learning and ILT Managers.

Released March 09

Funding £275,000

Starts June 2009

Duration 18 months

Catalogues of Islamic Manuscripts

One of the recommendations from the University of Exeter's review of user requirements for digitised resources in Islamic Studies was the creation of online version of the catalogues of Islamic manuscripts in UK Collections. This JISC will be funding work in this area, with the creation of outputs that will provide the initial impetus for a union catalogue of Islamic manuscripts in UK Collections.

Eligibility to Bid

Proposals may be submitted by any UK-based institution or organisation with collections of significant value to higher education and research in England or the related expertise in managing such collections.

Of Interest to Staff Responsible for

Pro-Vice Chancellors for e-learning and e-research; Directors of Information Services and Systems; Learning Resource Managers, Libraries and Archivists; Principal Investigators in relevant Research Teams: Head of e-Learning and ILT Managers.