Digital Economy All Hands: DE2013 Open Digital, 4th-6th November

Steve Brewer

The fourth All Hands meeting for the RCUK Digital Economy Theme will take place from the 4th - 6th November at Media City, Salford. The meeting will bring together innovative thinkers and researchers from many disciplines and backgrounds and help foster an environment that supports the further growth of the DE sector in the UK. We hope that many of the members of the ITaaU Network+ will be able to join us in Media City to share the experiences and achievements of the various activities that are emerging from our contribution to the Digital Economy.

Design approaches for IT utilities - 2 day workshop, London - 4th-5th July

This two-day Design workshop will explore best practices in design approaches relating to IT utilities. This will encompass both the development of IT utilities and also the design of the mechanisms for provisioning them as services or utilities. This will cover the spectrum of utilities from apps to the cloud and much else besides.

The workshop features contributions from two contrasting companies that are key supporters of the ITaaU Network+, ustwo and IBM. The workshop will take place on two sites with the first day spent at the IBM Client Centre on London's South Bank and the second day spent at the Shoreditch headquarters of ustwo in the heart of London's Tech City.

Now and Future of Data Publishing: report from Jisc meeting - 22 May, 2013

On 22 May a number of us from ITaaU based in Southampton attended the Jisc research data meeting in Oxford. The sell-out event brought together many key stakeholder groups involved in this important topic: researchers, research funders, policy makers, journal editors, publishers, data curators. The day featured a number of provocative and inspiring keynotes from publishers and policy makers as well as leading researchers. The forward thinking nature of this stimulating day was captured early on with Simon Hodson's quote that, “Publishing articles without making the data available is scientific malpractice,” which is attributed to Geoffrey Boulton of the Royal Society.

ITaaU Second Pilot Project Call - deadline: 7th June

The deadline for Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the next ITaaU Pilot Projects is 7th June. Guidelines for your two page application for the first round can be found on our website. Proposals can present projects of up to 6 months and request amounts of up to £50,000 (on normal Research Council terms). Interdisciplinary and multi-institution applications are being sought that address the key challenges facing the Digital Economy in the area of IT as a Utility.