Research Programme

To help achieve our charitable mission to realise the benefits of IT for learners, researchers and the institutions that support them, the Eduserv Research Programme undertakes forward-thinking research that leads to a greater understanding of technology and shared services which we provide to the academic community.

We do this both to inform the development of new and existing services and to increase understanding about the effective use of ICT among the relevant sections of the academic community. Ultimately, we hope that these activities will enrich our relationships with the educational sectors we serve, forging new links through through secondments, events, publications, sponsorship and some continued grant-making.

Our objectives are:

• to develop demonstrator and pilot services and open source software toolkits
• to promote and encourage good practice within Eduserv and the community and to increase understanding of community need and solutions
• to contribute to the development of UK and international interoperability standards
• to maintain highly knowledgeable staff within Eduserv.

Background

The Eduserv Foundation operated for five years from 2003 until 2008. During that time we provided approximately £2.5 million in research grants, held four annual symposia (providing, in total, a forum for around 25 speakers and 600 attendees) and undertook a wide range of events, sponsorship, small grants, standards making, research and other activities.

We are proud of the achievements of the Foundation. The new Research Programme is a re-profiling of our previous work within the Foundation and is focused directly on contributing to the development of services provided by Eduserv to learners, researchers and their institutions. All of our services, including access and identity management, licence negotiation and web solutions, are operated on a not-for-profit basis aligned with our charitable mission.