The document discusses how higher education is embracing digitalization through technologies like digitization, digitalization, and transformation. It also discusses how the digitalization journey can vary across different parts of an organization. Any future research environment will need to consider administration/management/support, the research process itself, and the community being served. A digital twin represents a technology that could help with a future research environment by providing a virtual representation to facilitate decision making and scenario testing across the research lifecycle.

1. Digitalisation and the future of
research environments
Prof. Balbir Barn
Deputy Dean – Research and Knowledge
Exchange
Faculty of Science and Technology
Middlesex University
#JiscDigiRes
@profbalbirbarn
email:b.barn@mdx.ac.uk
15 December 2020

2. Higher Education is
embracing digitalisation
• HEIs as Digital Enterprises
• October 2020 – JISC publishes Digital at
the core:
— Digitisation: Changing from analogue to digital.
— Digitalisation: technologies for automation and
streamlining.
— Transformation: change in culture, workforce and
educational and operational models.
— Move from descriptive analytics to prescriptive
analytics (hindsight to foresight)

3. The complexity of higher education
• The digitalization journey can be
different for different parts of the
organization.
— Maturity levels for domains and sub-
domains (Substitution, Extension,
Breakthrough)
• Any Future Research Environment
will
— Have impact across quadrants
— require an enterprise-wide information
model to understand at least the static
permeations

4. Research Infrastructure Theme
• Improving the wider research infrastructure. The
research ecosystem needs to work together:
— ePersistent Identifiers (PIDs) and metadata to link to resources
from research outputs and make these discoverable.
— repository infrastructure and how it can be better embedded in the
UK digital research framework, to better expose open content.
• Tools and methods for future researchers. How can
researchers know about the possibilities of technology
and be equipped to use it effectively?
— modelling, simulation, AI, machine learning,
— digital twins, tool chains,
— tools for practice and for open collaboration and dissemination,
research 4.0, text mining, remote working and collaboration.
SoftwareTools
Methods
CRIS
Technology
AI/ML/Digital Twin
Meta data
Resources Repositories

5. Future of Research Environments need a
research infrastructure that accounts for:
Administration, Management,
Support
• Data and Key
Performance Indicators
• Research Information
Systems
• Postgraduate research –
development, training.
The Research Process
• Research tools and
environments
• Integration of new
Methods to use new
techniques from AI/ML
The community being served
• Making research more
accessible
• Platforms for citizen
science research
• Changing practices to
reflect greater inclusion
and diversity in research
producers and
consumers
Anika Chebrolu, a 14-year-old from Frisco, Texas, has
just won the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge --
and a $25,000 prize -- for a discovery that could
provide a potential therapy to Covid-19 using in-silico
methodology.

6. Research Environments and their infrastructure:
Digital Twin.
Digital Twin
Concept
Administration, Management,
Support
• Data and Key
Performance Indicators
• Research Information
Systems
• Postgraduate research –
development, training.
The Research Process
• Research tools and
environments
• Integration of new
Methods to use new
techniques from AI/ML
The community being served
• Making research more
accessible
• Platforms for citizen
science research
• Changing practices to
reflect greater inclusion
and diversity in research
producers and
consumers

7. Digital Twin Definition
• A virtual, high fidelity representation of a
system (physical artifact) that is amenable
for rigorous quantitative analysis through
what-if /if-what scenario playing to facilitate
decision making.
— The Digital Twin is the semantically linked collection of the
relevant digital artefacts including design and engineering
data, operational data and behavioural descriptions.
— The Digital Twin evolves with the real system along the whole
life cycle and integrates the currently available and commonly
required data and knowledge.
Digital Model
PA
D
M
Digital Shadow
PA
D
M
Digital Controller
PA
D
M
Digital Blueprint
PA
D
M
Automated
Manual

8. Research Environments and their infrastructure:
Digital Twin.
Digital Twin
Concept
Administration, Management,
Support
• Data and Key
Performance Indicators
• Research Information
Systems
• Postgraduate research –
development, training.
As a
dashboard for
control of data
The Research Process
• Research tools and
environments
• Integration of new
Methods to use new
techniques from AI/ML
The community being served
• Making research more
accessible
• Platforms for citizen
science research
• Changing practices to
reflect greater inclusion
and diversity in research
producers and
consumers
A tool for theory
building and
exploration.
Support for citizen
science research

9. © Middlesex University
Conclusion
• Future of research environments is
bigger construct and permeates
across the institution.
• New tools are needed and they are
required within the context of
digitalization.
• Digital twins represents a
candidate technology that can help
in multiple facets and help to move
from hindsight to foresight.
• More information on digital t twins
is available at: https://dt.mdx.ac.uk