Over the last few weeks, the main focus of the Research Lifecycle Programme (RLP) team has been on progressing the 2019/20 business case. The case is now going through its usual governance structure and is being reviewed by the RLP programme board and the Research IT Strategy Change Management Board. It will soon be ready for submission to the Change and IT Projects Sub Committee (CITP). You will have the opportunity to learn more about the progress of the business case in upcoming newsletters.

In other news, we are excited to announce our first innovation community meeting for virtual and augmented reality, a new events page on the RLP website and news about advancements in some of our change projects.

Events

Join our virtual and augmented reality innovation community

As part of the innovation community project, we would like to invite current users and interested researchers to a lunch meeting to discuss the use of virtual and augmented reality in research across the University. The idea of this community is to share experiences and common interests and discuss ways in which we can work together to better use available resources and generate a community that can collaborate internally and apply for research funding collectively. 

This event will be held on Monday, 17 June at 11:30am in room 4.38 in the Simon Building.

Find out more and register for the event:

• VR and AR innovation community event

Contact innovation@manchester.ac.uk if you have any queries about the project or the event.

New Events Page

We have added a new page to the RLP website so you can keep up to date with events and opportunities to get involved. All opportunities to engage with the programme will be listed on this page, as well as featured on our newsletter. If you would like to invite us to an event or meeting with your team to discuss RLP, we are more than happy to attend. Simply contact rlp@manchester.ac.uk

View our new event page:

• rlp.manchester.ac.uk/events

News

Digital Image Viewer progress (Project V)

The development of the Manchester Digital Collections is gathering pace, as part of the Digital Image Viewer project. The current software development, which is being undertaken by University of Cambridge, will lead to a new and improved, content loading system which will be available by the end of June 2019. This will be followed by a new webpage for a better user experience in October, which includes features to support higher resolution downloads and better on screen image manipulation.

We are working on how to promote the Digital Collections to interested audiences, whether that be researchers or the general public, to ensure that the widest possible audience can benefit from our efforts.

We are also working with University of Cambridge, who created the original image viewer, to move the project into a collaborative phase where interested organisations can work together to extend the Digital Collections even further. These discussions will start in June and we are preparing our ‘wish list’ for this next exciting phase of development.

Implement a costings tool and approach and tool to model grants progress (Project D)

Our biggest news from the costing tool project is that we have selected ‘BlackDackel’ as the new research costing tool for researchers at The University of Manchester. The project team is currently reviewing the statement of works and terms and conditions and will soon be signing contracts. A workshop will be held with BlackDackel to discuss the plan for implementation in the next few weeks. Once all details are confirmed, further information will be in future newsletters, so keep an eye out!

Aside from the tool selection, we are also excited to announce we have added a new person to the project team. Carly Moseley from IT Services has been assigned as the new Business Analyst to engage with faculties and departments to understand their current workflow process.

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