The UK can’t make the most of its research infrastructure if we can’t see it
A world-leading research system needs world-leading infrastructure – and it needs to know where it is
Across the country every day, researchers are reliant on thousands of pieces of specialist equipment that most people will never see.
High-performance computing systems process vast datasets; the national research and education network, Janet, moves research data between institutions and facilities; specialist imaging equipment reveals structures invisible to the human eye. Together, these assets form part of the UK's research infrastructure: the physical and digital foundations that make research possible.
We can see their impact in some of the breakthroughs they enable. At Diamond Light Source, the UK's national particle accelerator, powerful beams of light allow scientists to investigate materials at extraordinary scales. The facility has helped to advance research ranging from Covid drug development to treatments for HIV, malaria and cancer.
While major national facilities often attract attention because of the discoveries they enable, they represent only part of the UK’s research infrastructure landscape. Research infrastructure also includes the thousands of pieces of specialist equipment distributed across universities and research organisations: instruments bought for individual projects, facilities built up by research groups, and technologies maintained by teams of specialist technicians. Each might sit on one institutional asset register – but collectively they amount to a considerable national research capability.
All of these resources are integral to the UK’s research capacity, and yet we would struggle to answer a deceptively basic question: what do we actually have?
Earlier this year, the National Audit Office examined how DSIT (as it then was) and UKRI develop and operate the infrastructure on which research depends. It noted that UKRI spent £1.1bn on research infrastructure in 2024–25, concluding that while there had been significant progress in understanding future requirements, more could be done to manage infrastructure as a portfolio, balancing investment in new capabilities with the maintenance and renewal of existing ones.
Taken together with the Universities UK transformation and efficiency taskforce’s call for greater collaboration and sharing of infrastructure across institutional boundaries, this necessitates a different way of thinking about research infrastructure: not simply as equipment and facilities owned and managed by individual institutions, but as resources that collectively underpin the UK's ability to do research.
The full picture
To share infrastructure effectively, invest in it strategically and manage it as a portfolio, we first need to be able to see what we have.
The UK has already made progress in understanding its major research infrastructure. InfraPortal, for example, provides a searchable catalogue of publicly funded research and innovation infrastructures available for use and collaboration.
But when it comes to the large, diverse equipment and facilities base held by universities and other research organisations, visibility becomes much harder.
An institution may understand the equipment on its own estate, although even that information can sit across different systems and departments – a challenge referenced by Jisc’s recent briefing on technical legacy. But various questions remain much more complex: how does a researcher discover potentially useful equipment and facilities elsewhere? How do funders ensure they have excellent data on the strengths and specialisms they need to invest in? And how do governments get the information they need to make decisions about skills and sustainability, as well as economic growth? It is harder still to form an aggregate picture of research infrastructure across institutions. This doesn’t just present as inconvenient admin – it actually defines what researchers can or cannot do.
Imagine a research team needing access to specialist high-performance computing facilities, advanced hardware and technical expertise to develop new AI models for climate prediction. Without visibility beyond their own institution and established networks, their choices are constrained by what and who they already know. The relevant capability might already exist in another organisation, potentially accompanied by technical expertise and opportunities for collaboration. But for that team of researchers, an asset that cannot readily be discovered might as well not exist.
Better information therefore has the potential to change the way we think about infrastructure. This is the thinking behind Jisc’s Equipment Data Service (EDS). This service makes information about research equipment across participating institutions more consistent and discoverable, creating a clearer view of the assets available across the sector.
This presents practical benefits for research teams looking for equipment and expertise that could support their work, but there could be even greater strategic gains. A more comprehensive evidence base could help institutions understand where capabilities already exist and where there are gaps. It could support decisions about whether equipment needs to be purchased, shared, renewed or replaced. And it could make it easier for funders and policymakers to understand how investment in our collaborative research and innovation universities across the UK contributes to a much wider national and international competitiveness and impact.
This potential is important when resources are constrained and the investment choices substantial. Across the 2026–27 to 2029–30 spending review period, significant public investment is planned for research infrastructure, including more than £2bn for digital research infrastructure and £1.5bn to be invested by research councils in equipment opportunities and the maintenance of UKRI institutes.
Better data will not remove difficult choices, nor does greater visibility mean that every piece of equipment should be shared. Research equipment can be heavily used, costly to operate and dependent on specialist staff. Some instruments have constraints that make wider access impractical. Universities rightly need to make decisions based on their own research strategies and responsibilities.
A national system
There is an opportunity to move beyond thinking about equipment simply as a set of assets belonging to individual organisations and towards understanding the capability those assets and world leading facilities create collectively.
That of course requires cooperation. No national system can provide a useful picture of distributed research assets unless institutions contribute good-quality information and keep it current. EDS depends not simply on technology, but on universities, research organisations and the wider research ecosystem recognising that the data itself has value. The service is helping to create a clearer picture of the UK's research infrastructure landscape: as coverage and participation grow, so too does its potential to support collaboration, strategic planning and evidence-based investment across the research system.
UKRI’s 2026–31 strategy says its mission is to “advance knowledge, improve lives and drive growth,” and it places partnerships with universities, institutes, national laboratories and innovative companies at the heart of that ambition. Meanwhile, scrutiny from the National Audit Office has focused attention not only on building new research infrastructure, but on how the UK’s existing infrastructure is maintained and used.
Planning for the infrastructure which the UK will need in future is essential, but so too is our collective understanding how much more could be achieved through making better use of what we already have.
The UK has built formidable research capability over decades, in national facilities and supercomputers, but also in laboratories and specialist equipment across the country, demonstrating significant regional capacity. However, to realise its full potential it needs to become more visible. Knowing what we have is not just in order to create a better inventory, but to create the conditions for researchers to find capability, institutions to collaborate, funders and government to invest intelligently, and existing assets to contribute as much as possible to new discoveries.
In his speech at the Innovation Nation Summit earlier this month, the Prime Minister unveiled big ambitions for research and innovation across the UK. He asked what it would mean in practice to become the world’s leading innovation nation – and answered that it would mean “having a globally significant cluster in every region and nation, every single one.”
Research infrastructure provides the foundation for research and innovation. If we are serious about the UK's research ambitions, we should be equally serious about understanding and connecting the research and innovation infrastructure that makes those ambitions possible.
Liz Bal is Director of Product for Research Management at Jisc. Victoria Moody is Director of Research and Innovation, Strategic Development and Engagement at Jisc.