Research Environment

The digital research environment complements the campus environment, allowing us to showcase our research outputs and artifacts, demonstrating their quality and impact, provide secure virtual collaboration spaces for our research centres and extend the reach of external engagement.

Digital offers opportunities to embrace the inclusive research culture we aspire to create and is a more prominent requirement for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2028 assessment.

The University’s segregated teaching and research computer network, server infrastructure and laboratories allow freedom to innovate, experiment and undertake extended simulations and testing, with a High Performance Compute Cluster for researchers to process data and perform complex tasks at high speeds.

Our data strategy recognises the desire to create, curate, protect, share and ethically exploit our research data as an asset, while promoting open access to our data and outputs. The University’s research repository facilitates all these activities.

The research life cycle, and that of our post-graduate research students, is underpinned by friction-less processes supported by our ecosystem of applications.

For more on the research environment, watch Nick Antonopoulos (Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice Principal of Research & Innovation) talk about his vision.

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They think digital transformation for any university these days is not a nice option or something nice to have in the for the future. It is really essential for future proofing the University both its academic and professional service operation.

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We did Learns about a year ago, our brand new digital innovation hub which aims to utilise our good work around research and innovation through digital channels to maximise our rights, our influence, engagement and ultimately impact. However, digital is also above and beyond that. So we need to see existing mature technologies around digital automation in conjunction with emerging disruptive technologies like

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AI and chatbot GPT like technologies. How collectively we can make use of them in order to improve the efficiency of our operations and ensure really that our great staff spend much more time on high value tasks as opposed to repetitive tasks that can easily be implemented through those technologies. Utilising these technologies to heavily speed up the and streamline the process that we have in place in terms of managing

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of the external bids for funding that we make. UH also managing for instance the approval process and setting them up onto our financial monitoring systems. Mature digital technologies exist and have existed for many years that can take this highly repetitive tasks, heavily automated them and therefore free. Our good professional service staff staff are to actually help our academics in developing leads with external organisations and help them really with the challenging

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components of developing successful bids. Yeah, I think we have making some great progress in using digital technologies to support our research and innovation. For me the biggest trophy moment and surprisingly is the purchase, installation and functioning now of our brand new high performance cluster, which is of course a resource which is available for all the academic disciplines across all five schools. A fantastic and necessary resource to be able to

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process huge amounts of data and to be able to derive intelligence from those data. And can I say I do fully anticipate that resource will be used heavily in the context of our external partnerships with organisations and other businesses. But looking forward into the future, really there are a number of other exciting plans coming up. The very first one is really the expansion of our augmented and

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virtual reality facilities. It is clear more and more academic disciplines are going to make use of that both for educational and research purposes across all three campuses. So looking forward to the implementation of these plans whereby every campus will be having this dedicated fantastic infrastructure in place. But above and beyond that, I'm also looking forward for the utilisation of the concept of digital sweet twinning for the purposes of augmenting the experience of staff,

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students as well as external visitors and stakeholders in the university. Briefly Speaking of course digital twinning is the process whereby we create a digital twin of an existing physical infrastructure and through real data we are capable of managing each operation better, more effectively. They can play a huge role also in terms of our sustainability and then the. So I can tell you know, really very exciting plans coming up in terms of digital in this university.

Innovation Hub

The Innovation Hub’s web presence is the shop window to demonstrate the diversity and impact of our research and our research culture, to highlight opportunities for knowledge exchange and display the services we can offer potential partners. This digital presence is underpinned by a strong customer relationship management system and automation-enabled enquiry management, so that we deliver a quick, tailored, expert response to all opportunities.

Extended Reality

To support our leading Research Centre for Digital Twins, we have interconnected Virtual Reality /Augmented Reality caves, which complement the learning & teaching extended reality and immersive spaces. Our campuses are living labs providing real data sets for research and student projects, which, among other things, can solve real-world issues in our estate. ER is increasingly facilitating virtual engagement with students, colleagues and external parties.

Research Centres

Our digital capabilities support our Research Centres, and emerging interdisciplinary Research Institutes, within the University and in their collaboration with partners locally, nationally and internationally. These capabilities provide interdisciplinary collaboration spaces, reliable connectivity at scale and secure data sharing and processing. We showcase the outputs and impact of their work with greater reach by using our web presence as a key channel.

Research Projects

Our strategic platform for research project management is Worktribe, a platform that the University has helped mature. We digitally enhance our processes, from preparing the initial business case, monitoring delivery to closure. We minimise bureaucracy and aid proportionate review and approval of the benefits, resources, ethics and data management of the project, increasingly using automation and AI to do so.

Researcher Skills

We ensure that our colleagues and students have the skills required to undertake impactful research in a rapidly changing digital age, whether it is as part of the Early Career Academic pathway or as part of continuous professional development. This includes sharing best practice for exploiting emerging technologies and protocols, staying current wth open access obligations or effective management of research data.

Public Engagement

We utilise our web presence and social media platforms, interactive webinars and accessible multimedia content to engage the wider public in our research activities. Data analytics enhances targeted communication, fostering engagement, and virtual collaboration tools ensure inclusive participation. Security measures safeguard sensitive information. Adaptation to emerging technologies ensures sustained, impactful public engagement in research.

University wide

While being committed to Growing Sustainability

As well enabling strategic objectives within our Research & Innovation and Environmental Sustainability Strategies and our developing Infrastructure & Estates Strategy, this theme directly links to the delivery of a number of our strategic KPIs including those focused on Advance Knowledge and associated Transformational Actions:

Advance Knowledge: Number of Research active Staff with at least one 3-star and above publication
Advance Knowledge: Income from Research Grants & Contracts (£M)
Advance Knowledge: Income from Knowledge Exchange (£M) (CPD and Consultancy exc Graduate Apprenticeships)
Advance Knowledge: Proportion of Academic Staff Active in Externally Funded Research and knowledge exchange
Student Recruitment: Research Postgraduate Students (FTE)

Transformational Values

Our transformational actions explained.

Launch new Innovation Hub

Align Academic Excellence around Wellbeing & Sustainability

Build Research Capacity & Capability

Achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2030

Deliver Accessible Upskilling & Work-Based Learning

Grow and Diversify Income

Education

We enhance learning and teaching through the use of technology and the skills to use it effectively. We leverage digital services to provide students with a modern learning experience that is accessible and flexible.

Student Journey

We provide digital services that empower students to successfully navigate and enhance their University journey, ensuring that they have access to tailored services, information and support.