The widespread adoption of e-Research technologies will revolutionise the way that research is conducted. The ENGAGE project plans to accelerate this revolution by meeting with researchers and developing software to fulfil their needs. If you would like to benefit from the project, please contact ENGAGE (info@omii.ac.uk) or visit their website (www.engage.ac.uk).

ENGAGE combines the expertise of OMII-UK and the NGS ? the UK?s foremost providers of e-Research software and e-Infrastructure. The first phase, which began in September, is currently identifying and interviewing researchers that could benefit from e-Research but are relatively new to the field. "The response from researchers has been very positive" says Chris Brown, project leader of the interview phase, "we are learning a lot about their perceptions of e-Research and the problems they have faced". Eleven groups, with research interests that include Oceanography, Biology and Chemistry, have already been interviewed.

The results of the interviews will be reviewed during ENGAGE's second phase. This phase will identify and publicise the 'big issues' that are hindering e-Research adoption, and the 'big wins' that could help it. Solutions to some of the big issues will be developed and made freely available so that the entire research community will benefit. The solutions may involve the development of new software, which will make use of OMII-UK's expertise, or may simply require the provision of more information and training. Any software that is developed will be deployed and evaluated by the community on the NGS. "It's very early in the interview phase, but we?re already learning that researchers want to be better informed of new developments and are keen for more training and support." says Chris Brown.

ENGAGE is a JISC-funded project that will collaborate with two other JISC projects ? e-IUS and e-Uptake ? to further e-Research community engagement within the UK. "To improve the uptake of e-Research, we need to make sure that researchers understand what e-Research is and how it can benefit them" says Neil Chue Hong, OMII-UK's director, "We need to hear from as many researchers and as many fields of research as possible, and to do this, we need researchers to contact ENGAGE."

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Created by c.brown@omii.ac.uk on 2008-02-18

Last modified on 2008-07-24