I2S2: Infrastructure for Integration in Structural Sciences

The Infrastructure for Integration in Structural Sciences (I2S2) Project was funded under the Research Data Management Infrastructure strand of the JISC's Managing Research Data Programme, with a duration of 18 months (Oct 2009 to March 2011).

I2S2 identified requirements for a data-driven research infrastructure in "Structural Science", focusing on the domain of Chemistry, but with a view towards inter-disciplinary application. Project developed use cases that explored the perspectives of scale and complexity and inter-disciplinary research throughout the data lifecycle.

Two research data management pilots based on the use cases examined the business processes of research, and highlighted the benefits of an integrated approach. Both pilots addressed the traversal of administrative boundaries between institutions to national facilities in addition to issues of scale (local laboratory to national facilities, DIAMOND synchrotron and ISIS respectively). Pilot 2 in particular, applied the approach to Earth Sciences and demonstrated the benefit to scientific disciplines other than Chemistry.

A key component of the infrastructure was a harmonised Integrated Information Model to include all stages of the Data Life Cycle.

In addition, a "before and after" cost-benefit analysis were performed using the Keeping Research Data Safe 2 model, which was extended to address inter-disciplinary requirements in I2S2.