JISC

Over the past twenty years, the power and capability of IT has increased exponentially providing new research processes and increasing researchers’ creativity, productivity and ability to communicate their research. During this time, various infrastructures have emerged driven by initiatives such as the UK e-science programme. These infrastructures encompass networking and communication; data transfer, storage, discovery and retrieval; and computation and processing.

Many researchers are making effective use of IT infrastructures, but others are not fully aware of the opportunities for their research, or lack the capability, support and skills to realise these opportunities. Meanwhile, the potential capability of IT infrastructures is increasing at breakneck speeds whilst institutions have limited resources to keep up.

Research is generating ever more data. Scientific instruments, sensors and installations, such as the Large Hadron Collider, generate data at an ever increasing rate, while more and more existing data are digitised and made available online. Researchers need access to computational resources to store, share and analyse these data quickly, allowing them to make their research more efficient or to ask entirely new questions. Researchers are increasingly working in collaborative research groups, both nationally and internationally.

The outputs from this programme will assist these groups with collaborating, exploiting e-infrastructure and helping to build communities within and across domains.

The Research Programme encompasses the following two strands:

• Research tools 
• Research support