Discover and share good practice for smarter working universities

CREST – Consortium for Research Excellence, Support and Training

Provides an innovative model for how to further research excellence and promote institutional and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Brunswick agreements

Template agreements for use between institutions with reference to materials transfer, research collaboration and studentship. Produced by the Brunswick Group.

Kit-Catalogue – making sharing easier

Kit-Catalogue is a online database that can help universities to keep track of equipment, internal and external technology gaps and also to identify equipment sharing opportunities. Developed by Loughborough University and funded by Jisc, promotes better use of assets within and between institutions and makes them available for public and commercial application.
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Graphene innovation centre to boost portfolio of shared assets

A Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) being developed at the University of Manchester will bolster the portfolio of shared assets supporting collaborative research, after it was awarded £15 million of funding from HEFCE.
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Jisc’s shared data centre boosts research efficiency

Jisc has developed a shared data centre for the UK’s academic research when others have tried unsuccessfully before. In this blog post, Jisc's Phil Richards explains the secret behind the project's success and shows how it is already boosting research efficiency for the founding members.

Effective Use of Laboratory Equipment and Resources: Inventory and Booking Systems – free workshop...

This free workshop examines 'bottom up’ schemes being developed by scientists and technical staff to manage inventory and booking, including home grown software and commercial programmes, and how different systems can work with each other to mutual benefit. 12.30 for 1.00 - 4.15 pm, Wed 30 April 2014, University College London.
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UK research secures new national data centre

A new Jisc shared data centre housing the data of six leading UK scientific and academic organisations will enable the sharing of high volumes of data. The facility represents a significant example of asset sharing in the sector with the potential to deliver cost savings and reduce the procurement needs of institutions.
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Jisc secures networks to enable safe sharing of medical research data

Jisc is enabling researchers across the UK to safely and securely share health data for their collaborative research projects. The UK’s research and education network Janet, provided by Jisc, is providing an efficient solution that secures the networks linking participating institutions and eliminates the need for them to develop and manage their own authentication systems.

Making better use of spare lab capacity

An online tool that has been described as Airbnb for laboratories is enabling researchers for private sector firms in the USA to buy time in university laboratories with spare capacity, the Economist reports.
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What are the real efficiencies from sharing equipment?

If sharing is largely collaborating then are we collaborating as much as we can? Or are we focussed on the need to collaborate more when actually such activity is fully optimised? Therefore is the question we should really be asking ourselves: “How can we become more efficient?” We have always needed partnering for knowledge or resource reasons, and we will continue to have these needs, possibly procured in more efficient processes. However, the business processes and support for our research equipment is where there is a real potential for more efficient and effective practice. Read more of this article in the July equipment.data e-newsletter.