Research infrastructure

Our funds for research support high-quality research activity at institutions, but are also designed to support the infrastructure on which researchers depend. This includes support for libraries, museums and galleries and other ways in which researchers access key information for their research.

Accessing resources

Some of our funds to support infrastructure aim to make it easier for researchers to access the information that underpins their activity.

We aim to ensure that all research funded through HEFCE is as widely and freely available as possible. For this reason we are committed to supporting increased public access to research findings.

We are supporting the UK Research Reserve (UKRR) in partnership with the British Library and higher education libraries. The aim of the reserve is to retain in the long-term research journals that are not used regularly and make it easy for researchers to access these journals.

With the British Library we have funded the reserve in two phases. The first of these ran until 2008 and released over 11,000 metres of shelving from eight higher education libraries. From 2008, we committed £9.84 million to phase two of UKRR. This second phase will release up to 100 kilometres of shelf space, saving the sector up to £29 million in capital funds.

Our funds also recognise libraries that contain collections of exceptional importance. The funds for these ‘national research libraries’ aim to:

ensure that the research community can gain access to these collections
compensate the institutions that house them for the additional costs this brings with it.

Museums and galleries

The Museums and Galleries Fund supports museums and galleries whose collections are of wide research significance and whose costs are greater than the home institution can normally be expected to bear.