At DiRAC, digital innovation is at the heart of everything we do. Through collaborative research, strategic infrastructure development, and strong industry engagement, we are creating powerful new opportunities for scientific discovery and technological advancement. Our digital innovation activities support the UK’s research community while building connections across academia, industry, and government and include the following core undertakings:
Our Innovation Placements programme offers exciting opportunities for PhD students and early career researchers to gain hands-on experience through collaborative industry placements. These placements are designed to bridge the gap between academia and industry, supporting research in high-impact areas such as artificial intelligence, data science, and machine learning. By embedding researchers within real-world environments, the programme not only accelerates the development of new skills and insights but also delivers tangible outcomes for our industry partners. These projects often lead to ongoing collaborations, new tools and technologies, and valuable career development for the researchers involved.
Strong partnerships with industry are a cornerstone of DiRAC’s innovation strategy. Our technical teams work side-by-side with commercial partners on co-design projects that span hardware architecture, software optimisation, and workflow integration. These collaborations lead to more efficient and capable research tools while helping industry partners develop competitive, forward-thinking solutions. From contributing to breakthroughs in scientific computing to enabling innovation in fields like engineering, healthcare, and finance, DiRAC’s industry engagement generates real-world impact. In addition, we actively support knowledge exchange and long-term collaboration through initiatives such as Innovation Placements and joint development projects.
To meet the evolving needs of researchers and align with the strategic vision of UKRI and STFC, DiRAC is leading a major infrastructure initiative: the Federation Project. Funded through UKRI’s Digital Research Infrastructure programme, the Federation Project aims to build a more resilient, flexible, and secure high-performance computing ecosystem across the UK. Phase 1 of the project included several foundational work packages focused on improving interoperability, user access, and system integration. By increasing the level of federation across existing services, we are lowering barriers to entry for new research communities, making advanced computing resources more accessible across disciplines and sectors, and ensuring our infrastructure is future-ready.
