Supply Software As A Service Application

Research Councils are the public bodies charged with investing tax payer’s money in science and research in the UK. Each Research Council funds research and training activities in a different area of research ranging across the arts and humanities, social sciences, engineering and physical sciences and the medical and life sciences, together investing around £2.8 billion each year. The Councils employ around 12,000 staff and support around 30,000 researchers in UK universities and in their own research institutes. There are currently seven Research Councils: ? Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) ? Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) ? Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) ? Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) ? Medical Research Council (MRC) ? Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) ? Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) All are Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs), established by Royal Charter and are independent legal bodies outside of Government, accountable to Parliament. Research Councils UK (RCUK) is a strategic partnership between the Research Councils, established in 2002 to enable the Councils to work together more effectively. Through working in partnership, the Councils aim to enhance the overall impact and effectiveness of their research, training and innovation activities, contributing to the delivery of the Government’s objectives for science and innovation. The provision of an Environmental Research Workbench and related services to cover the following: ? Provision of a software (SaaS) application (the Workbench) that will enable users to interrogate, model and analyse data within a hybrid cloud environment (see Figure 1) ? Provision of professional services to work with us to implement the solutions, train and educate us on the new system capabilities Provision of a support for the Workbench in terms of bug fixes, upgrade paths and second line support.