The UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced that following a review of JISC's committee structure, the JISC Board has decided that from August 2009 certain key changes will be made to that structure.
It was decided in particular that a new committee - the JISC Infrastructure and Resources committee (JIR) - would be created. Although the precise remit of the new committee will be defined in the coming months, it is envisaged that it will take on many of the functions of the current Integrated Information Environment committee (JIIE) together with some of the functions of the Content Services and Networking committees (JCS and JCN), which will cease to operate beyond next July. Other functions of those committees will be taken on by the JISC Executive, allowing JIR to focus on strategy, innovation and take-up.
A review found that the existing committee structure for research, learning and teaching, and organisational support is already well-aligned to JISC's strategic aims. This is in addition to the recommendations outlined above. As with the new JIR, the review, however, called for a revisiting of these committees' terms of reference to ensure that they remain focussed on strategy, innovation and take-up of JISC's outputs.
JISC committees are made up of senior representatives from the education and research sector. Applications for membership for the new Infrastructure and Resources committee will be invited in late 2008/early 2009. After consideration by the Nominations committee, the membership will be announced by the end of March 2009.
