The UK Survey of Academics 2012, conducted by Ithaka S+R, Jisc, and Research Libraries UK (RLUK), examines the attitudes and behaviours of academics at higher education institutions across the United Kingdom. Our objective is to provide the entire sector, including universities, learned societies, scholarly publishers, and especially academic libraries, with timely findings and analysis that help them plan for the future.

The Survey of Academics covers broadly the population of academics across the UK, as well as the opportunity to look at disciplinary and institutional stratifications, offering an unusual depth of analysis. Thematically, the Survey of Academics covers resource discovery and current awareness, library collections and content access, the print to electronic format transition, academic research methods and practices, undergraduate instruction, publishing and research dissemination, the role and value of the academic library, and the role of the learned society.

The UK Survey of Academics is designed to closely parallel the Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2012, and an analysis of differences between the two national populations will be released in summer 2013.

A workshop of UK academic library leaders to discuss findings and consider their impact is being held in London on May 20th, and presentations and video will be made available here.

The survey dataset will be deposited with ICPSR for preservation and access.

About the Partners

Ithaka S+R is a research and consulting service that helps academic, cultural, and publishing communities make the transition to the digital environment, providing long involvement in survey research of this sort. RLUK is the membership organization of the UK’s research libraries, and this survey constitutes one piece of RLUK’s agenda.  Redefining the Research Library Model to inform how to establish the best possible research support regime for academia. Jisc is an independent education charity. It provides UK higher education, further education and skills sectors support on the use of digital technologies. Jisc’s vision is to make the UK the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world. Their mission is to enable the education sector in the UK to perform at the forefront of international practice by exploiting fully the possibilities of modern digital empowerment, content and connectivity

Advisory Committee

The UK Survey of Academics was developed with an advisory committee, comprising:

  • Mark Brown, University of Southampton
  • Rachel Bruce, Jisc
  • Wayne Connolly, Newcastle University.
  • Mike Mertens, RLUK
  • David Prosser, RLUK
  • Ben Showers, Jisc
  • Sarah Thomas, University of Oxford