The investment includes £43m for ARCHER, a new national supercomputer to support advanced research, such as complex chemistry and climate science, and helping industry design new products. For aerospace and automotive better analysis of accidents, helping industry build safer vehicles in less time. E-infrastructure also supports researchers through increased data storage and faster networks.

The Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts (right) urged that people “Not think of infrastructure as just roads and railways – it’s also the networks and systems that underpin our world-leading science and research base. This ambitious and forward-looking programme of investment will be vital for businesses and universities alike. It will improve research and manufacturing processes and reduce the time and money it takes to bring a product to market.

Specific projects to benefit:

• £30m for the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, supporting research into the latest product development software;


• £24m for high capacity data storage across the Research Councils, ensuring researchers can easily access complex information from experiments;


• £31m to improve high capacity networks, including JANET, a system funded by the UK higher education funding bodies that helps the higher education community share large amounts of research data more easily;


• £19m for specialist supercomputers in areas such as particle physics and astronomy, weather forecasting and climate change, and genome analysis;


• £4.75m for the UK Space Agency to support the collection and storage of data from satellites; 
• £6.5m to establish a research fund for collaborative university projects to improve access to e-infrastructure.

Professor Rick Rylance, chair of Research Councils UK (RCUK) said: “This investment is especiallywelcome in the challenging economic times we all face. Investment in high performance computing and increased data storage capacity is essential to ensure research in the UK remains at the cutting-edge in the most advanced areas and is capable of stimulating growth.

"It signals once again RCUK’s commitment to supporting the best and the most innovative work and ensuring the future prosperity and wellbeing of the UK.”
This investment is in addition to the ring-fenced science and research budget and subject to business case approval.