Dear all,

I’ve been asked, as the National Planners’ Group rep on the HESA HEI User group, to communicate to you a current initiative from JISC to apply for funding to support business intelligence and other key areas, following on from a research project JISC has been undertaking in this area, which colleagues will find of interest.

Further information can be found at the URL below.

Best wishes Vikki

JISC invites institutions to submit proposals for the following areas in support of its strategic objective to help institutions improve their efficiency and effectiveness, particularly with regard to their corporate and business systems, and to become more environmentally sustainable:

• Business Intelligence Systems  
• Relationship Management
• Greening ICT

Brief information about the individual calls is outlined below. The full text of each call will provide information about the amount of funding available per project and project length.  The projects are of varying length but will be expected to start in February 2011 and to have finished by no later than July 2012.  The closing date for proposals for each call is Wednesday 17 November 2010.

Business Intelligence Systems

Funding of £500,000 is available to fund a number of projects which will help senior managers and decision makes in institutions make better use of both internal and external data in support of their roles.  Projects will work in conjunction with the JISC infoNet new online Business Intelligence resource.  The full text of the call is available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2010/09/grant1210.aspx.

Relationship Management

Funding of £700,000 is available to fund projects which will help institutions in the area of relationship management. These include the development of a comprehensive on-line handbook of good practice in Customer Relationship Management processes and approaches for HE and FE, and a number of demonstrator projects which will focus on:

• developing and validating innovations in the management of information, processes and services that improve the quality of the student experience, specifically to enhance progression and retention, and minimise non-completion;
• developing and validating innovative processes and harnessing web technologies to support mutually beneficial alumni engagement.

The full text of the call is available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2010/09/grant1310.aspx.     

Greening ICT Programme

Funding of up to £1.05 million is available to fund projects that will help universities and colleges reduce the environmental impact and energy cost of ICT provision and which will investigate how ICT can be exploited to enable institutions to become more sustainable, including:

• a number of short focussed rapid innovation projects which will focus on solving specific technical problems in Green ICT.
• projects which focus specifically on the role of the estates departments in addressing areas of Green ICT concern or in the harnessing of ICT to address estates concerns.
• larger scale exemplar projects which will show where ICT can enable major changes to the way that institutions do business to move towards a more sustainable future.

The full text of the call is available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2010/09/grant1410.aspx.     

Eligibility

Proposals may be submitted by HE institutions funded via HEFCE, SFC, HEFCW and DEL Northern Ireland, and by FE institutions funded via SFC, DCELLS Wales and DEL Northern Ireland. FE institutions in England that teach HE to more than 400 FTEs are also eligible to bid provided proposals demonstrate how the work supports the HE in FE agenda.

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Vikki Goddard

Director of Planning

The University of Liverpool

Email: [log in to unmask]

Tel: +44 151 795 2129