Produced by the Office of Science and Innovation (OSI) e-Infrastructure Working Group, the report - Developing the UK’s e-infrastructure for science and innovation - sets out the requirements for a national e-infrastructure to help ensure the UK maintains and indeed enhances its global standing in science and innovation in an increasingly competitive world.

Made up of senior representatives from JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), the Research Councils, RIN (Research Information Network) and the British Library, the Working Group was formed in response to the Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014, published by the Treasury, the DTI and the DfES in 2004, to explore the current provision of the UK’s e-infrastructure and help define its future development.

The working group established six sub-groups which have each produced reports, in the following areas:

1. Data and information creation
2. Preservation and curation
3. Search and navigation
4. Virtual research communities
5. Networks, compute and data storage
6. AAA (authentication, authorisation and accounting), middleware and DRM (digital rights management)

The overarching report presents these six areas as distinct but interconnected stages of a lifecycle, a lifecycle that is crucial, the report argues, to the future of research in the UK and to the research community’s activities to engage with industry and apply its world-leading innovations to commercial use.