Digital Futures. Expert Briefings on Digital Technologies for Education and Research (Introduction)

The UK academic sector is successful on a global scale. It not only contributes more than £73 billion to the national economy each year, but also produces some of the most groundbreaking research undertaken anywhere in the world, and is highly effective in the commercial exploitation of that research, leading to significant economic return and societal impact. While the UK represents just 0.9% of the global population and 4.1% of the world’s researchers, it produces 15.9% of the world’s most highly cited articles.1 The sector excels not only in research but also in teaching, with a world-class reputation across teaching, research and knowledge transfer. A contributing factor to this success is undoubtedly the investment made by UK funding bodies in a world-class shared digital infrastructure, which includes a secure network dedicated to the needs of research and education. At the research level, this enables large data storage and high-performance computing facilities to be linked both nationally and internationally. The infrastructure also includes eduroam, the worldwide single sign-on secure network which provides Wi-Fi connectivity to more than 600,000 Internet-enabled devices in the UK. The UK national infrastructure encompasses not only technology but also digital content, with negotiation and licensing for academic journals and databases along with the national provision of digital archives to support innovative research and education. However, the academic sector faces many challenges if the UK is to sustain its position as a world-leading research and education nation. In preparing this book, we were keen to ensure that it covered all the major aspects of the digital technologies that will enable the UK higher education sector to remain a global leader. Thus, we have chosen authors who are not only leading experts in their fields but who are also proactively engaged in developing those technologies that both support the sector and enable innovative change.