Research IT

Future Plans for Research IT

At the start of year Research IT commissioned Open Data Manchester to undertake a series of strategy finding workshops with members of the research community from across the University. The report generated from the outcomes of the workshops is now available and we'd like to hear your thoughts.

As part of work to produce an IT Services wide strategy, here in Research IT we are pulling together our own vision and plans for the next few years. It would have been impossible to do this without the input of our research community and so we asked Open Data Manchester (ODM) to help. Together with Research IT they organised a series of in-person and online workshops to gather feedback from the research community on the following topics:

  • current services offered by Research IT
  • gaps in the current service offering
  • awareness and understanding of Research IT across the University
  • barriers that prevent the research community from accessing and using Research IT

The workshops concluded at the end of February and we would like to thank all the researchers, PGRs and PS staff who attended the workshops or took part in 1-2-1 interviews with ODM.

In March ODM presented Research IT with a report which aims to provide an evidence base to inform our future strategy. We are also going to use the findings and recommendations in the reports to address issues such as uneven awareness and utilisation, remove barriers to access and to ensure that our services align with the diverse present and future needs across all research disciplines at the university.

The key recommendations from the report focus on:

  • delivering a competitive service offering with high-quality resources
  • providing tailored support and training that caters to varying technical backgrounds
  • enhancing communication and awareness of services through clear use-cases and website materials tailored for diverse audiences
  • strengthening collaboration between Research IT and researchers through dedicated liaisons and forums
  • conducting broader engagement across the full 7,000 researcher population

We are now ready to share the ODM report and we would welcome your thoughts / comments on their list of recommendations. You can feedback on as many or as few if you like and you can also comment on the report in general. Please note that the report is only available to University staff, researchers and PS staff and all feedback is anonymous. The deadline for feedback is the 22nd of July.