Invited talk about evolving plans for Research IT and Data support at the University of Bristol, given at the UCISA Research IT International Symposium, UCISA 2014 Conference, Brighton.

1. IT Services R&D / ILRT
Slides produced in collaboration with the Research Data Service (data.bris)
Co-designing Research IT and
Research Data Services
Dr Simon Price
Academic Research IT Manager

2. Research IT
University of Bristol
• Research-intensive university
• 6 Faculties: Social Science & Law, Science, Engineering, Arts
and two Medical Faculties
• Employs 2000+ researchers (excluding PhDs)
• Each year (approximately):
• 1500 research funding applications
• £100M research income
• 4500 research outputs

3. Research IT
Co-designing Research Data Services

4. Research IT
The University of Bristol, pre-data.bris

5. Research IT
pre-data.bris
• £2m research data storage (only)
facility launched in 2011
• Each researcher has 5TB storage
without charge (additional storage
available with a charge)
• Research Data Storage and
Management Board, members
from faculties and support services
• Pure (research information system)

6. Research IT
1. Standard way to publish research data
2. Sharing research-active data collaboratively
3. A way to link papers with datasets
4. Research Data Management (RDM) training
5. Data Management Plan (DMP) support
6. Institutional policy on RDM
pre-data.bris: not in place

7. Research IT
Jisc-funded pilot

8. Research IT
Co-designing data.bris
IT Services
Library Services
Research
Services
Researchers

9. Research IT
Jisc-funded pilot

10. Research IT
Jisc-funded pilot

11. Research IT
Jisc-funded pilot

12. Research IT
Jisc-funded pilot

13. Research IT
Jisc-funded pilot

14. Research IT

15. Research IT

16. Research IT

17. Research IT

18. Research IT

19. Research IT
Inside the business case: 2013-2015
Who?
• Ownership: Library Services
• Staff: 1x Service Manager, 3x Research Data Librarians, 1x Technical Support
When?
• August 2013 – August 2015
Doing what, day-to-day?
• ‘Self-help’ guidance in place but… some DMPs will be manually checked
• Online training available but… in-person training also available
• Self-deposit of datasets in place but… datasets still validated manually

20. Research IT
Timetable
• 2010-2012 pre Jisc-funded data.bris ‘pilot’
• 2012-2013 Jisc-funded data.bris ‘pilot’
• 2013-2015 Research Data Service ‘project phase’
• 2015+ ongoing Support Service

21. Research IT
Research IT

22. Research IT
Research IT is not Enterprise IT
• Efficiency-inspired centralisation and standardisation of
IT provision at Bristol has resulted in measurable benefits
for what might be described as Enterprise IT
• Research groups within a university function more like
1000s of small businesses rather than as one large
enterprise
• Addressing such diverse needs in a scalable and
sustainable way remains an open problem within the
sector

23. Research IT
Co-designing Research IT Services
Mmm... Could we
use the data.bris
approach to tackle
Research IT?

24. Research IT
Co-designing Research IT (initial idea)
IT Services
Library Services
Research
Services
Researchers
RIT

25. Research IT
Research IT Service pilot 2014 - 2016
Researchers

26. Research IT
Research IT Service ideas
• Computer Science and Digital Humanities
• Internal "market" for students
• internal marketplace – paid in cash or course credits
• managed projects – participating in research
• Outsourcing
• crowdsourced approach
• internships into companies (win-win)
• Regional collaboration (GW4)
• shared resources
• shared expertise/knowledge

27. Research IT
Co-designing Research IT
IT Services
Library Services
Research
Services
Researchers
RIT
Computer
Science
Commercial
Sector
Students
Other
Universities

28. Research IT
Beyond service pilots
• One option under consideration at Bristol:
• Feed both pilot projects into an e-Research institute
• Multi-agency research service
• Multi-disciplinary "digital research"
• Combined support and academic functions

29. Research IT
Bristol is beautiful – come visit us!
Dr Simon Price
http://simonprice.info