Jisc will investigate a national shared services infrastructure for universities and colleges.
The Joint Information Systems Committee says it will explore this and other shared and managed services options in an effort to cut costs and spread expertise across further and higher education, according to its strategy document for 2010-12.
Jisc also promises continuing spending on existing infrastructure, including the Janet network, for development and upgrades.
Other commitments include enhancing the efficiency and cost effectiveness of management information systems.
"There is a widespread sense of concern about management information systems, especially in higher education," says the document. "Few institutions feel they have optimum systems, the general perception being that they are complicated and… are also often expensive to acquire and maintain."
Jisc, which works with all universities and more than 500 colleges, says that more flexible corporate systems that complement and support new ways of working could provide a significant return on investment over time.
Cloud computing will also be investigated by Jisc, to explore the potential for institutions and individuals to access resources online, without the need to store them locally or purchase them outright.
"This is most likely to be the case where considerable computer resources are needed for relatively short periods of time," the document says.
It also points out that software-as-a-service offers the ability for institutions to use sophisticated software on a flexible basis, removing the high cost in time and money involved in buying and owning it.
"Our innovation activities will be focused on shorter term outputs in areas that have the potential to cut costs: shared services, green ICT, cloud computing, software-as-a-service, and management information requirements," said Dr Malcolm Read, Jisc executive secretary.
"Innovation to improve the effectiveness of learning and teaching will continue focused on student progression and retention, and approaches to improving research collaboration techniques will continue to be promoted.
"Our longer term commitments to the open agenda will also be maintained, including open source, Open Access, open educational resources, and supporting open research and open innovation."
