Member Sites

As the UK national e-infrastructure the NGS connects resources from different resource providers within UK HEIs, making them available for user communities which rely on their underlying functionality to produce world leading research outputs.

This section of the website describes why a research institution would want to join the NGS, the procedure for joining the NGS, from nomination of a site Campus Champion to adding resources as either an affiliate or partner and what happens once it has joined, including connecting to new user communities.

Membership to the NGS is free and its members are usually UK Higher Education Institutes or research establishments. When they wish to join the NGS they can do so by nominating a Campus Champion, a local e-Infrastructure expert user who acts as a conduit for information between the NGS and local users and receives technical and non-technical expertise from the NGS. Establishments wishing to join resources can do so as an affiliate, which means that they deploy a minimum set of interfaces and middleware to their own resources and allow these resources to be used by their own users. Or they can join as a full Partner and allow users from outside of their institution to use their resources.

The benefits of joining for all is access to a set of common standards-based interfaces that their users can access resources through, which will also allow smooth access to resources elsewhere, enabling collaborations nationally and internationally. They also get a suite of services such as monitoring, accounting and outreach which allows them to effectively manage their resources and publicise their work.