Delivering the UK’s e-Infrastructure for Research and Innovation

• 1. The development of the UK’s Research and Innovation e-infrastructure has arrived at a critical juncture. Do we build on the great success of the last few years and exploit the opportunities of the future or do we stand on the side lines and watch the UK’s global advantage dissipate and fade? Einfrastructure is essential to high quality research and contributes to the international position of UK science. Rather than being a research by-product, it represents a critical national asset in its own right. This report recommends a clear way forward to secure e-infrastructure, vital to the UK as we come out of recession, and looks to the future.
• 2. In this report we define e-infrastructure to mean:
  – digitally-based technology (hardware and software),
  – resources (data, services, digital libraries),
  – communications (protocols, access rights and networks), and
  – the people and organisational structures needed to support modern, internationally leading collaborative research be it in the arts and humanities or the sciences.
  
  and the combination and interworking of all these.

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• 13. The Expert Group now makes the following recommendations that were agreed to by all its members:
  – The UK’s Research and Innovation e-infrastructure should be treated as
  a strategic National Facility. RCUK should ensure that major Research and Innovation infrastructure projects are included in the Large Facilities Roadmap, and considered for submission to the Large Facilities Capital Fund, where they meet the criteria for the Fund.
  – The UK’s Research and Innovation e-infrastructure needs to be led and
  driven to deliver a UK wide vision for research e-infrastructure, embedded
  in the international context essential to today’s research challenges. The
  leadership must provide a multi-year perspective, identify best practice,
  coordinate stakeholder investment and champion relevant and fit for
  purpose cross-disciplinary standards to facilitate coordination.
  
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