Jisc's new chairman looks to the future
Universities need to 'work together' and 'pool their IT talents' to maintain the UK's position of global leadership in technology. So says Professor Sir Tim O'Shea, Principal of Edinburgh University, in a podcast interview released today to mark his chairmanship of Jisc which begins this month.
Exploring some of the challenges the sector currently faces, he goes on to suggest that Jisc provides the means for such collaboration, detailing a number of areas in which Jisc's work brings leadership and delivers economies of scale to the sector. 'The JANET network is obviously the most compelling one,' he says, 'but the development of new platforms for the sector, the development of standards for the sector, the development of packages related to the management of research, or to the support of e-learning, are others. These are all things which, because of their scale, even a very big university can’t expect to do well on its own, but that British universities together can.’
The interview follows an article published in last week's Times Higher in which Sir O'Shea talks of the changes he has seen in the sector's use of technology and looks forward to 'bring[ing] Jisc's benefits to as wide a group as possible.' Referring to Jisc as a 'national treasure', he says its work is a major source of competitive advantage over universities in other countries.
Read the full Times Higher Education article
Listen to the podcast (Duration 10:41)
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