1. ‘Your gateway to the latest innovative research in the UK’
Gateway to Research
Name
Job title
Research Councils UK
‘Your gateway to the latest innovative research in the UK’

2. Background Innovation & Research Strategy for Growth 2011
“Giving people the right to roam freely over publicly funded research will usher in a new era of academic discovery and collaboration, and will put the UK at the very forefront of open research.” David Willetts
Agreed funding with BIS
Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, government’s advisor for open data
Slide 2 - Background
The BIS Innovation & Research Strategy stated the intention to maximise the impact of our research base on economic growth and make research findings more accessible to all users -
“The Research Councils have now agreed to invest £2 million in the development, by 2013, of a UK ‘Gateway to Research’. In the first instance this will allow ready access to Research Council funded research information and related data but it will be designed so that it can also include research funded by others in due course. The Research Councils will work with their partners and users to ensure information is presented in a readily reusable form, using common formats and open standards.

3. Vision RCUK will work with Partners to develop a web-based Portal:
A single, public point of access to search and analyse information on:
Who, what and where the Research Councils fund
The outcomes and outputs from Research Councils’ funding, linking to already available open access repositories and/or data catalogues
A facility to contact individuals to seek advice and discuss research opportunities
The ability to link with other data
Slide 3 – Vision
Goal of GtR is to give the public better access to information on research funded by the Research Councils, particularly information such as:
who, what and where the Research Councils fund;
the outcomes and outputs from Research Councils’ funding, linking to already available open access repositories and/or data catalogues.
GtR provides a mechanism for businesses and other interested parties to identify potential partners in universities to develop and commercialise knowledge, and maximise the impact of publicly funded research (it is not however a substitute for face-to-face brokering which Universities already do).
GtR is being developed as part of the BIS Innovation and Research Strategy to support innovation and growth in the UK by making quality research information accessible and useable; specifically for the needs of research/innovative intensive SMEs.
A means for GtR Users to contact individuals using a form-based enquiry facility within the portal

4. Expected Benefits
To support innovation and growth in the UK by making quality research information accessible and useable;
specifically for the needs of research/innovative intensive SMEs
Increased SME engagement with the research base, leading to growth and greater impact from research
To support the provision of consistent, high quality data and standards across the Research Councils initially
Data in repository can be downloaded by 3rd parties to add value
Slide 4 – Expected benefits
GtR is one tool (there are others) which, over time, has the potential to stimulate further academic-business collaboration (which is already very good in the UK, 2nd only to Switzerland).
One desired outcome is an increased SME engagement with the research base, leading to greater impact from research and economic growth.
A clear desired outcome, in the short-term, is the provision of consistent, high quality data and standards across the Research Councils initially.
There is potential for 3rd parties to download the publicly-available data (they can in turn use the data for their own purpose including commercial on the basis that they acknowledge the provenance of the information i.e. CC-BY Creative Commons Licence which is in line with RCs’ open-access policy).

5. JISC Partner Project – G4HE
Gateway for Higher Education
Aims to engage with GtR to improve the information exchange between Higher Education Institutions and the Research Councils.
Develop tools and interfaces to allow both human and machine access to data held on GtR, and elsewhere where that is required;
Based on validated use-cases shown to have specific and demonstrable value to HEIs.
Slide 5 - JISC Partner Project – G4HE
JISC are running a parallel project using GtR to improve information exchange with HEIs

6. The Beta System
Information on all the externally awarded projects (aka grants) from 2006 across all 7 Research Councils in a common data schema
All Publications and a range of other impacts submitted through Research Councils reporting systems
User interface to explore the data, with keyword and facetted search technologies
Basic Application Programming Interface (API) for users to consume the data
Slide 6 – The Beta System
Includes information on projects (aka grants) from 2006 onwards from across all 7 Councils; (currently there are over 42,000 projects on GtR, with more being released between now and the December launch)
Includes information on impact generated from the projects (e.g. key findings) when it is available (when the data is available in RoS / Research Fish);
Basic user interface and Application Programming Interface (API) allows for a wide range of users to ‘consume’ the data.

7. Analytics
Since the launch of the beta site in December 2012 GtR has had:
An average of over 3500 unique visitors on gtr.rcuk.ac.uk each month
500% increase in enquires to inbox in July and August
Slide 7 - Analytics

8. Scope of Data AHRC BBSRC ESRC EPSRC MRC NERC STFC
Coming soon….TSB data
Slide 8 – Scope of Data
Data is from all seven Research Councils, with future funding bodies coming on board shortly

9. Known Issues
Project Person – linked to organisation they last informed us of, not necessarily the organisation associated with the project
Funded Amount of project – where a grant is transferred it shows the full amount granted, not the resulting reduced amount
Linked projects may appear to be duplicates but are not
Co-funders cannot currently be made available
De-duplication needed on organisations and publications
Slide 9 - Known Issues

10. GtR Portal http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/ Slide 10 – GtR Portal
This is how the portal currently looks, although Re-development of the User Interface to improve accessibility & usability is coming soon

11. Future Enhancements
Re-development of the User Interface to improve accessibility & usability
Make Contact mechanism
Studentships information planned to be available after December launch
Impact Statement Summaries for other RoS Councils - more outcomes and impacts will be available before Launch
Research publications
Organisations - Company House Numbers and possibly Ringgold Institutional Identifiers
Slide 11 – Future Enhancements

12. Project Milestones Hack day Official Launch 4th December
Business Launch early Spring 2014
Embedding GtR into host Council
Slide 12 – Project Milestones
Working with Nesta and Rewired State on challenges faced by SMEs
Launch at House of Commons with David Willetts
After the launch of GtR, the intention is to have ‘business as usual’ staff within a host Research Council to ensure the smooth running and continued improvement of the portal.

13. Future of GtR Potential for the UK’s first national brokerage platform
Potential for linking GtR to other web platforms’
Slide 13 – Future of GtR
Potential to go one step further and enhance the intelligent brokerage potential of GtR through linking in to a National Brokerage Platform. This will provide an opportunity to link the world class academics funded by the Research Councils with the top innovative businesses.

14. Useful links http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/
CERIF:
Slide 14 – Useful Links

15. Questions? Q & A Thank you Slide 15 – Questions
(FAQs available from Aja Marriott: