Adding Value to Data: Digital Repositories in Research Infrastructures

We will set up a network that addresses the potential for synergy between the fields of e-Science and Digital Repositories, and the benefits that will be obtained by increasing interaction and cooperation between researchers and practitioners in these fields. More specifically, the network will address a group of related issues where e-Science and Digital Repositories meet, including: the incorporation of e-science methodologies and tools within digital repositories; the integration of repositories within wider e-infrastructures; the enhancement of digital repositories to manage complex scientific workflows; the federation of repositories using advanced techniques such as grid and semantic technologies. These issues will be addressed within the broader context of data creation and curation in e-Science. The network will operate across disciplines, including the arts, humanities and social sciences as well as the sciences in the narrower sense, as the technologies addressed are trans-disciplinary. We will encourage inter-disciplinary contacts and collaborations, and facilitate the transfer of knowledge and expertise gained within one discipline to other fields. Moreover, given the range of potential applications of the technologies, we do not expect interest in the Network to be restricted to the academic world, but also to include non-academic institutions. Consequently, we will encourage industrial participants, including commercial companies, cultural heritage organisations (e.g. museums, art galleries, and historic libraries), the media, and public/government bodies. We have now created a website for the network grant: www.dresnet.net . Would you please reference this website on the EPSRC page for the project. By the way, DReSNeT is our short name for the network(an abbreviation of Digital Repositories for e-Science... )