It has been nearly two years since the last Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research (PVC-R) ‘IT Needs of Active Research Survey’ was released, and as we prepare for the next survey, we wanted to update you on some actions that IT Services has taken since we analysed the results of the 2024 survey. You can find … Continue reading “Update – 2024 IT Needs of Active Research survey progress”
Category: BEAR Service
Cooling works in data centre – upcoming service disruption
We would like to advise BEAR users of upcoming essential maintenance on cooling systems that will impact our services over Easter, in particular the HPC-facility, BlueBEAR, which will be unavailable for two weeks. Background behind the maintenance The Park Grange Data Centre is where the University’s High-Performance Computing systems, BlueBEAR and Baskerville reside, as well … Continue reading “Cooling works in data centre – upcoming service disruption”
November 2025 BEAR Newsletter
Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter This month, we enjoyed meeting and speaking to over 200 staff members at the Staff Benefits Fair about the various BEAR services available, welcome to those who have joined our mailing list! November’s newsletter looks a little different as we’ve added some sections to help with navigation, do let us know if you have … Continue reading “November 2025 BEAR Newsletter”
Digital Research Committee working groups
Authors: Carol Sandys and Stephanie Thompson, Advanced Research Computing Some of you may be aware of the exercise that IT Services is undertaking to refresh the Digital Strategy and consider future investment in digital initiatives across the board, including for research. To contribute to that exercise, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, Professor Rachel O’Reilly, has asked … Continue reading “Digital Research Committee working groups”
How green is the BEAR? 2025 updates
In 2022, we took part in the University’s Sustainability Town Hall and published a blog post highlighting Advanced Research Computing’s efforts in sustainable computing over the previous decade. Since then, we’ve continued to explore and develop initiatives in this space. With growing concerns around the energy demands of data centres – such as a recent … Continue reading “How green is the BEAR? 2025 updates”
High-Resolution Soil Hydrology Analysis Enabled by BlueBEAR
In this case study, we hear from Guilin Luo, a PhD student in the School of Geography, who has been harnessing BEAR’s advanced computing resources to investigate how temperate forest soils respond to climatic change. By integrating high-resolution environmental monitoring data from the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) site, and using workflows in R … Continue reading “High-Resolution Soil Hydrology Analysis Enabled by BlueBEAR”
BEAR helps delve into the infant gut and malnutrition
In this case study we talk to Leon, a PhD student in the Department of Microbes, Infection and Microbiomes, who is using bioinformatics of microbes that encompass the human gut microbiome. The human gut is inhabited by trillions of microbial cells and most of those cells have very important roles in human health. My work … Continue reading “BEAR helps delve into the infant gut and malnutrition”
SSI Research Software Maintenance Fund
The Software Sustainability Institute recently announced that they’ll be running the first Research Software Maintenance Fund. The scheme will offer up to £500k for two years or up to £150k for one year “to support and maintain existing research software or sustain a team responsible for multiple software tools”. The closing date for Expressions Of … Continue reading “SSI Research Software Maintenance Fund”
Planned work to improve resilience of the Research Data Store
Users of the Research Data Store (RDS) may have noticed intermittent performance issues affecting storage recently, which has been causing some disruption to users. This work is a necessary precursor to a major program of work in which we will replace, expand and enhance, the RDS service. Phase 1 Between now and summer 2025 we … Continue reading “Planned work to improve resilience of the Research Data Store”
‘Data and AI for researchers’ at the University’s first Data Conference
On Wednesday 26 February, the University’s inaugural Data Conference was held. With a series of talks and interactive sessions covering advice and tips on handling data, and a focus on building a community of data professionals, we ran a session in collaboration with the Institute for Data and AI entitled ‘Research and AI for researchers’. … Continue reading “‘Data and AI for researchers’ at the University’s first Data Conference”