Maintaining access to a full range of world-class facilities, either in the UK or abroad, is vital if the UK is to remain a leading centre of research excellence.
The nature of facilities is evolving, so as well as the traditional large physical installations, they also increasingly include networked resources. These resources use advances in information and communications technology to underpin new collaborative methods of research.
Large facilities and infrastructure also provide principal locations for scientific, academic and business collaboration. The development of scientific hubs in close proximity to large facilities and infrastructure provides good focus points to attract inward investment.
In many fields, research communities will increasingly rely on more centralised facilities to provide data and experimental platforms that provide the basis for integrated and large scale research efforts. These may be focused around particular technologies, or the consideration of particular problems or user needs. This evolution of large facility requirements is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as technology develops.