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

EPSRC数字经济主题旨在调查创新ICT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在一系列学术学科的新研究上投资28亿英镑。2007年，英国企业的研发总支出为每年161亿英镑。研究也是普通公众生活中重要的一部分，无论是研究他们的家族史，还是为BBC节目SpringWatch贡献观测数据。鉴于研究对社会如此重要，我们有理由问我们如何才能帮助研究人员变得更有效。SPIRES产生于2009年7月举行的关于有效研究空间的数字经济沙坑，聚集了一批对这一主题感兴趣的跨学科研究人员。SPIRES-支持调查研究环境和空间的人员-是一项网络提案，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。通过一系列有重点的讲习班和外联活动，它将把物理空间、新技术和社会互动这三个角度结合在一起，以支持目前彼此没有联系的群体之间新的想法合成和新的对话。它的目标是：-形成和支持一个多学科的研究人员社区，这些研究人员具有加强研究环境的物理、技术或社会方面的专门知识；-加深对促进有效研究的方式的了解；-从英国和国际的角度记录和传播培育有效研究空间的最新技术；-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.