A £12.5 million programme, to be managed by JISC, will help colleges and universities in England deliver better efficiency through the innovative use of digital technologies.
The programme is one of the activities being carried out under HEFCE's University Modernisation Fund that aims to help universities and colleges achieve better value for money through the development of shared services.
There are two key elements to the programme.
1. Shared IT infrastructure
Up to £5.1 million will be invested in the setting up of a virtual server infrastructure (‘cloud') to offer discounted data management and storage services to HE institutions. Up to £4.9 million will be invested in developing HE research data management applications for the shared services environment
2. Shared services for administration
HEFCE will invest up to a further £2.5 million to develop shared services in administrative systems that support the delivery of learning, teaching and research. Shared services will allow them to benefit from aggregated purchasing and reduced implementation and hosting costs, and streamlined processes.
The programme will start in March 2011 and finish in March 2012.
More information.