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North’s first shared data centre for education and research secured by Jisc

A shared data centre for the north of England has been secured by Jisc to aid collaboration and the sharing of large data sets. Among the first tenants are Liverpool University, Sheffield Hallam University and the universities of Sheffield and Leeds.

Are we really competing? Should we be collaborating?

Following their presentation last week to the Embracing Efficiencies and Shared Services in Higher Education event, Andrew Rothwell and Ian Herbert of Loughborough University's Centre for Global Sourcing and Services outline their prediction for a range of new public-private partnerships with shared services centres taking a key role.

Cost sharing benefits outweighed by risks and costs, says N8 Research Partnership

A report by the N8 Research Partnership concludes the benefits of university 'cost sharing exemption' are outweighed by risks and costs, after running a cost sharing group for universities which share equipment. This press release produced by N8 following the two year project claims that too many legal and financial hurdles exist

Shared services in higher education: 5 things you might not expect to read

In the first of three posts, Ian Herbert and Andrew Rothwell of Loughborough University explain how shared services are more than just about headline cost savings, based on 10 years of research. You can learn more about this area in a shared services forum at the University of Northampton on 14 May.

Portsmouth University investigates sharing IT facilities with city schools

Portsmouth University, together with Portsmouth City Council, has won funding from the Higher Education Funding Council (Hefce) to investigate ways of sharing resources.

Janet Videoconferencing

Enables communication and collaboration at a distance.
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Partnership expands for Jisc’s open research data shared service

Jisc's research data shared service pilot now involves 17 partners after four more institutions joined in with the project. A blog by Jisc's Rachel Bruce says the service aims to serve a variety of needs, including providing repositories for deposit and access to research data and encouraging data reuse in the long term.

Financial X-ray

Helps cost IT services in research and education institutions.

HERBi shared services tool goes live

A web-based tool that allows higher education institutions to explore the quantitative and qualitative costs and benefits of sharing services is now live. Project manager Simon Perks tells us more about how HERBi can help you.

Kingston City Group – forming a cost sharing group

The Kingston City Group (KCG) Consortium became a Cost Sharing Group (CSG) on 1 August 2013 under the UK Finance Act 2012 and is the first fully operational CSG in this sector. KCG provides services to the member institutions fully exempt of VAT, thus providing real cost savings. Maria Vetrone is the Managing Director of KCG and she shares some of the lessons being learned along the way.