1. Director's introduction

Our task here is to review the activities that EDINA carried out last year in its role as a UK national academic data centre. Innovation is becoming a keyword, signalling a place for organisations that can transform R&D into products and services – in order, as EDINA's mission, to enhance research, learning and teaching, in the UK and beyond. Increasingly this means an international as well as a national role.

EDINA excels in the business areas of geospatial, scholarly communication, multimedia, learning resources, as well in the 'middleware' areas of interoperability and access management. We do so as an established part of the UK digital library, working with the academic support staff within institutions in the Higher and Further Education (H/FE) sectors that subscribe to EDINA services. EDINA is also steadily contributing through actions to support continuity of access to scholarly resources, and in particular to that contained in e-journal content. We have continued to develop close links with national partners, especially those in the 'JISC family' and with international groups, whether governmental, educational, standards development, research data, commercial or web-services.

We begin this Review with highlights of our year and then report against the strategic goals and objectives that we set ourselves for 2008-2009. This includes a wide range of services and projects, with highly rated, first class support through the EDINA helpdesk, augmented by subject experts within user support, and high quality context sensitive help and online documentation.

This past year, the academic year 2008-2009, will be remembered as significant for external events affecting the world's finances and economy. What that now means for research and education in the UK is still uncertain. Much depends upon how the sector is regarded by Government in its importance to long-term recovery and well being, as the size of public debt requires long term remedy. There is much talk about demonstrating impact in the sector, but it is important to moderate this with some assessment and mitigation of the negative impact that could be inflicted upon real capacity and performance. As is made evident here, EDINA has a record of achievement in 2008-2009, and a strong base on which to build network-level infrastructure in order to deliver cost-effective common services that add real value. This should not be undermined by short-term actions, but rather the opportunity should be taken to build capacity for the long-term.

Peter Burnhill
Director, EDINA