Gateway to Research aims to provide a mechanism for businesses and other interested parties to identify potential partners in universities to develop and commercialise knowledge, and maximise the impact of publicly funded research. It is being developed as part of the BIS Innovation and Research Strategy and a final live system will be launched at the end of 2013.
A beta version of the site is now available to use at: http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/
The goal of Gateway to Research is to give the public better access to information on research funded by the Research Councils. Particularly information such as:
- who, what and where the Research Councils fund
- the outcomes and outputs from Research Councils’ funding, linking to already available open access repositories and/or data catalogues.
Gateway to Research is aimed at those that wish to access UK research information, with a particular focus on innovation intensive SMEs, who wish to understand the UK research base.
It contains information such as who, what and where the Research Councils fund, as well as details about the outcomes, outputs and impact held on ROS and ResearchFish, and linking through to other available open access repositories and data catalogues where possible.
The information is a fixed snapshot of available information on research before the final live system is launched. It contains real data from grants across all seven Research Councils, awarded from 2006 onwards, that is already held in ROS and ResearchFish.
We need your feedback
The beta version has gone through robust technical testing and is close in look, feel and function to how we envisage the final product. However, it is important that we ensure the data it delivers and its functionality meets the needs of its users.
We are therefore calling on people to use and interrogate the beta site and provide feedback to RCUK on their experience to inform the development of Gateway to Research over the next year. We would also like to encourage third parties to investigate innovative ways that the data can be used and shared to take it to a broader audience.
Please email your feedback to gateway@rcuk.ac.uk.
Keep up to date with project developments through the RCUK blog site.