Designing Effective Research Spaces Sandpit: SPIRES- Supporting People Investigating Research Environments and Spaces

EPSRC数字经济主题旨在探讨创新信息通信技术的使用如何改变人们的生活和工作。研究对英国经济至关重要。英国研究委员会每年投资28亿英镑用于跨学科的新研究。2007年，英国企业的研究和开发支出总额为每年161亿英镑。研究也是普通公众生活的重要组成部分，无论是研究他们的家族史，还是为BBC的《春天观察》节目提供观测数据。考虑到研究对社会如此重要，我们有理由提出这样的问题：我们如何才能帮助研究人员变得更有效？SPIRES起源于2009年7月在有效研究空间举行的数字经济沙坑会议，该会议汇集了对这一主题感兴趣的跨学科研究人员。SPIRES——支持人们调查研究环境和空间——是一个网络提案，旨在将目前对设计有效的研究空间和环境感兴趣的不同群体聚集在一起，以创建一个新的研究社区。通过一系列重点研讨会和外展活动，它将把物理空间、新技术和社会互动这三种观点结合起来，以支持目前彼此不接触的群体之间新的思想综合和新的对话。它的目标是：-建立和支持一个多学科的研究人员团体，在改善研究环境的物理、技术或社会方面具有专业知识；-加深对促进有效研究的方法的了解；-从英国和国际的角度，记录和传播在培育有效研究空间方面的最新状况；-促进设计和评估有效研究空间的新方法的产生。

The EPSRC Digital Economy theme seeks to investigate how the use of innovative ICT can transform both lives and work. Research is vital to the UK economy. The UK research councils annually invest 2.8 billion into new research across a spectrum of academic disciplines. Total research and development spending by UK businesses was 16.1 billion per annum in 2007 . Research is also a significant part of the lives of the general public, whether researching their family history or contributing observational data to the BBC programme Springwatch. Given that research is so important to society, it is reasonable to ask how we can assist researchers to become more effective.SPIRES arises from a Digital Economy sandpit held in July 2009 on Effective Research Spaces that brought together an inter-disciplinary set of researchers interested in this theme. SPIRES - Supporting People Investigating Research Environments and Spaces - is a network proposal that aims to bring together currently disparate groups interested in the design of effective research spaces and environments in order to create a new research community. Through a set of focused workshop and outreach activities it will bring together the three perspectives of physical spaces, novel technology, and social interaction to support a new synthesis of ideas and new conversations between groups currently not in contact with each other. Its objectives are: - To form and support a multi-disciplinary community of researchers with expertise in enhancing physical, technological or social aspects of research environments; - To develop a deeper understanding of the ways in which effective research can be fostered; - To document and disseminate the current state of the art in nurturing effective research spaces, both from a UK and international perspective; - To stimulate the production of new methodologies for designing and evaluating effective research spaces.