A new report by Jisc, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has brought together the views of 15 major stakeholders from across the UK research community to gain an unprecedented insight into the UK's academic research infrastructure assets. The report, titled ‘Optimising the UK's university research infrastructure assets,’ aims to help identify more opportunities for collaboration, attract investment, develop skills, and reduce bureaucracy.
The report outlines a range of perspectives from interviews with leaders and experts from the UK's higher education, research, and innovation sector. It highlights opportunities for new collaborative approaches to optimise the use, sharing, efficiency, and sustainability of research infrastructure assets.
The stakeholder group will use the research to develop recommendations and sector-wide approaches to help the sector utilise the UK's research infrastructure assets more effectively, efficiently, and sustainably. The report identifies four key areas of opportunity for the research sector, which it recommends should receive extra investment to promote knowledge exchange and the commercialisation of research and development.
These areas include strategy and policy, people and culture, funding, costing, and charging, and digital, data, and technology. The report recommends that the sector should work together to reduce bureaucracy, take a collective view on environmental sustainability and security, increase diversity and equity within research teams, develop new costing, charging, and sharing models, and use high-quality data across the research infrastructure assets landscape to power new technologies for efficiency and innovation.
Dr Victoria Moody, director of research and higher education for Jisc, said that the UK's research infrastructure assets' management, sharing, and sustainability are a complex challenge. She hopes to find ways to improve how all organisations involved in research and development collaborate and tackle new challenges, such as the rapid adoption of AI.
The report will help boost collaboration between the higher education sector and industry, increase inclusion, and develop new cost models, according to Willoughby Werner, senior strategy adviser at UKRI. The report brings vital knowledge together, which will help the sector expand the range of what is possible for research and development within the existing setup, according to Antony Chapman, senior portfolio manager, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UKRI.
In conclusion, the report brings new hope to the UK's research and innovation sector by identifying key opportunities to optimise research infrastructure assets and promote collaboration. The recommendations will help the sector utilise these assets more effectively, efficiently, and sustainably and drive innovation and knowledge exchange.
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