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Introduction from Paul Ayris

The LCCOS Annual Report 2023-24 looks at key developments originating from the LCCOS Strategy 2024-27.

Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-vice-provost for LCCOS
LCCOS has a mission to energise intellectual and creative cultures at UCL. This year has been a particularly exciting one as we work towards a more open, accessible and impactful knowledge environment within education, research and culture, in support of UCL’s Strategic Plan.
 

The Annual Report 2023-24 presents a snapshot of some of these achievements, showing LCCOS colleagues working in partnership with our communities to deliver on our Vision:

We will open up our rich collections digitally and sustainably to support knowledge creation.

We will continue to show international leadership in Open Science through the application of new technologies and the development of innovative services.

We will contribute to the development of a vision for arts and culture at UCL, particularly in the sphere of collections and related services.

We will deliver change in collaboration with students, researchers and our other communities, throughout this strategy period.

Three examples illustrate the significant progress which LCCOS has made in the past year:

  • LCCOS has been successful in obtaining £2.4 million in funding from the Higher Education Museums and Galleries funding round (HEMG) over the next five years to support four of UCL’s museums and galleries.
  • The 2024 UCL Open Science awards attracted over 50 applicants. In its second year, the awards recognised excellence in areas such as Open Access Publishing, Open Data, Research Transparency, Open Educational Resources, Citizen Science, Public Involvement, Co-production, and more.
  • UCL Press, the UK’s first fully Open Access University Press, passed the milestone of 10 million downloads/accesses to its published outputs, signalling the popularity and the transformative effect of this business model. The 10 millionth download was the journal article ‘A short history of the successes and failures of the international climate change negotiations’ by Mark A. Maslin, John Lang and Fiona Harvey, which appeared in the pioneering open science journal UCL Open: Environment. By the end of the year, downloads of UCL Press books and journals had surpassed 12 million.

I hope this Annual Report illustrates and celebrates the range of activities undertaken across the department in service of our Vision and Mission.

Paul Ayris
Pro-Vice-Provost (UCL LCCOS).

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