Background

Janet was allocated £26M within the e-Infrastructure programme announced by BIS in late 2011, and these funds have been held by HEFCE for use by Janet within agreed projects such as Janet6 and the additional fibre provision to strategic research facilities.

Within this allocation, HEFCE reserved £4M to meet the e-Infrastructure programme requirement to work towards a Janet which is "open and accessible" to industry in the context of mutual access by industry and academic partners to relevant resources to support collaborative work.

Where collaborative projects require larger-scale data movement to support their work, a high-capacity connection to the Janet network may be needed. Janet will use part of this budget to fund a scheme which invites projects to apply for network connections to industry partners, and for these to be supported for a period of one to two years.

This support would constitute state-aid, and following external consultation, the scheme has been structured to enable project applications to be assessed against the nature of the work being proposed, and that only those which meet the permitted levels of support would be approved for provision of a network connection. This is a recognised method for managing state-aid issues and demonstrating compliance, and the assessment includes examination of the proportionate value contributed by the Janet connection to the total project value.

The scheme is based on the approach used by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) so it should be familiar to both industry and academic partners who have previously made TSB funding applications.

For those projects which are approved, a Janet connection would be established at an appropriate capacity, and periodic asessment of the project and its work would be undertaken to monitor progress against its proposal and to verify that it continues to meet the relevant criteria.