IRIS is more than a collection of digital infrastructure services. It is a collaborative community that brings together researchers, technical specialists, infrastructure providers and service operators from across the UK research landscape. By connecting people with diverse scientific and technical backgrounds, IRIS helps communities learn from one another, adopt proven approaches and avoid duplicating effort.
Knowledge and experience developed within one area of research can often be applied to another, accelerating innovation and helping researchers make the most of advanced computing, data and networking resources.
The IRIS community shares expertise in a variety of ways, including:
- Community workshops and technical forums, where researchers and specialists exchange knowledge, discuss challenges and showcase new developments.
- Cross-community working groups, bringing together experts from different scientific and technical domains to address common issues and opportunities.
- Training events and skills development activities, helping researchers and technical staff develop expertise in areas such as data-intensive computing, software engineering, artificial intelligence and data management.
- Collaborative projects and pilot activities, enabling communities to test new technologies, share lessons learned and develop solutions together.
- Specialist technical advice and consultancy, providing access to expertise in computing, data, networking, software development, cyber security and infrastructure operations.
- Knowledge transfer between established and emerging communities, allowing newer disciplines to benefit from the experience, tools and practices developed by more mature research communities.
- Community meetings, conferences and networking events, creating opportunities for researchers, infrastructure providers and technical experts to build relationships and exchange ideas.
- Shared software, tools, standards and best practices, helping communities adopt proven approaches and improve interoperability across research infrastructures.
Through these activities, IRIS helps develop a culture of collaboration that extends beyond individual projects, institutions and scientific disciplines. Researchers gain access not only to advanced digital infrastructure, but also to a network of people with experience in solving similar scientific and technical challenges. This shared expertise strengthens research communities, improves the effectiveness of infrastructure investments and helps ensure that innovations can be adopted and reused across multiple domains.
As research becomes increasingly dependent on large datasets, advanced computing and interdisciplinary collaboration, the ability to share knowledge effectively becomes ever more important. IRIS provides the framework through which expertise can be exchanged, capability can be developed and communities can work together to address common challenges and deliver world-leading research.
Key Areas of Expertise
IRIS communities share expertise across a wide range of topics, including:
- High-performance computing
- Distributed and federated digital research infrastructure
- Cloud and virtualised computing
- Scientific workflows and automation
- Research networking and data movement
- Cyber security and operational resilience
- Infrastructure operations and service management
- Community engagement and training
- International scientific collaboration
- Research software engineering
- Scientific data management and stewardship
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning
