The Digital Institute works to improve the Digital Research carried out through Newcastle University and the wider community. This is achieved through both facilitating new research through bringing academics together but also through working with academics to allow them to achieve new work or perform existing work in a better way. The aim here is to bring the best people together to achieve a goal.
Below we give some examples of the work we do in order to achieve these goals.

• Major Collaborative Research Bids. Producing successful funding bids which cater for the large societal challenges posed through the funding councils often require cross-disciplinary approaches. Where these bids include a digital theme we see that the Digital Institute can work as a facilitator to bring the different academics together and to strengthen the bid through our knowledge and expertise. We see the SIDE project as a good exemplar of this process.
• Research Bids. For many academics the digital side of their funding application causes them the most trepidation as this is the area they feel least confident in writing. The Digital Institute can work with academics either to strengthen these aspects of the bid or to help the academic find other researchers who can aid in this process.
• Support for Condor. Newcastle University has a substantial Condor Cluster which mainly consists of computers based in the cluster access rooms. This provides a substantial computing resource with up to 1600 computational cores available to researchers who require significant amounts of processing time. If the work that needs to be conducted can be split into independent chunks which are processed independently then the work will probably work well on Condor.
• Support for Matlab on Condor. Many users of Matlab in the university wish to make use of the Condor clusters to process Matlab jobs quicker. We are currently experimenting, with the support of ISS, with a method which will allow us to run Matlab jobs through Condor. So far we have had pleasing results for this and hope to make this scalable to all in the University.
• Power Conservation with Condor. To use the computers within the Condor Cluster requires that the computers be powered up so that they can accept work. This goes against the University policy on power consumption and sustainability. The current solution is that computers will power down after a set amount of time if not being used locally or by Condor. However, Condor then can't use this computer in the future until it is switched on. We are working here with ISS, the Bioinformatics Support Unit and Arjuna to provide a more intelligent solution in which computers can be powered back up as and when needed based on work requirements and power efficiency.
•  Formation of new iLABs. In many parts of the University researchers are working independently using Digital technologies. We can work here to bring together groups of academics working in similar fields to allow them to share ideas and collaborate. Two examples of this are the newly formed iLAB:Learn and iLAB:Museum.
• External Events. As well as providing support for Digital Research within the University the Digital Institute works with people from the wider community to improve the local reputation of the University with the digitally empowered population. We do this with events such as the monthly Super Mondays meetings which attract over 100 local IT professionals to a forum where they can discuss new digital research and technologies. We have also helped to organise two successful Cloud Camp meetings which each attracted over 80 participants who wished to learn more about Cloud Computing.
• Commercial Use of VR and Rapid Prototype Facilities. Both the Virtual Reality Suite and the Rapid Protoype Facility are available for commercial use. In the past few months we have had several visits from Architects and Systems Engineers to the VR, using it both as a presentation environment and a design tool, where the stereoscopic 3d grpahics and immersive technology make the system invaluble. The Rapid Prototype facility is also used by commercial customers, to create various small parts, biological models and even artistic projects such as sculpture. 

 
To find out more about these activities, or to discuss how we could help you please contact Stephen McGough or fill in our contact form.