Celebrating ten years of growth in Bath

Eduserv, the not-for-profit IT organisation based in the centre of Bath, is celebrating its 10th birthday this week.

Eduserv was set up in 1999 to develop services that had been created from partnerships between UK universities in the late 1980s. It is now a multimillion pound organisation that delivers IT solutions to the public and education sectors.

From just 20 people based at the University of Bath a decade ago, Eduserv now employs over 100 people. The organisation is continuing to grow and will be moving to a new head office in the centre of Bath this summer.

The organisation’s future business plans include building a new data centre in Swindon. The multi-million pound investment will give Eduserv additional capacity to create new services, and continue to expand their state-of-the-art internet and hosting services.

Stephen Butcher, Eduserv Chief Executive, added: “Our staff and their development are key to continuing the stability and growth that we have achieved. Moving into a single building will foster an even more creative environment and the data centre will enable us to extend the range of solutions that we can offer to clients. We now need to build on the successes of the last 10 years; and I believe that we are exceptionally placed to do so.”

Eduserv currently provides online access to information for millions of students and researchers within colleges, universities and the NHS. It also negotiates for software and data licences on behalf of universities and colleges, saving them £28 million over the last 12 months. In addition Eduserv provides internet services for some of the largest public sector organisations such as the NHS, the Training and Development Agency and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Eduserv Chief Information Officer and Deputy Chief Executive, Ed Zedlewski, was one of the founding members of the organisation. Ed said: “It is a privilege to be part of a local success story and we pride ourselves on the quality of solutions that we deliver. It is a testament to the skills and commitment of the people that work for Eduserv that we have been able to create a successful organisation with such a significant client list. I’m sure that our location in central Bath and our investment in staff development have been key factors in recruiting and retaining some of the most talented and ambitious people.”

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For more information please contact Alex Bacon, Eduserv Communications and Marketing Executive, 01225 470485 or email Alexander.bacon@eduserv.org.uk.

Notes to Editors

Eduserv was born out of informal shared service initiatives between universities in the late 80s. These services included.

• The Combined Higher Education Software Team (CHEST) negotiated for cost effective software and data licences specifically for UK universities and colleges.

• National Information Services and Systems (NISS) provided information portals and online learning resources for students and researchers.

• Athens enables students and researchers world wide to gain access to essential online resources through a single user name and password.

These services combined together and their work quickly expanded to include a range of internet based services for use by learners and researchers at universities, colleges and the public sector.

Eduserv was set up as a not-for-profit company in 1999 to continue and expand this work for the benefit of universities and colleges. All surplus money generated from trading by the organisation is reinvested in to further research and development of new services for the education sector. Today Eduserv provides the following services:

• License Negotiation Services
Eduserv delivers preferential terms and conditions for a wide range of software and data product licences. 97% of universities and colleges benefit from having at least one of our Chest Agreements, saving the academic community over £28m annually on the cost of software and data products from leading suppliers such as Microsoft, Adobe, Emerald and Hummingbird.

• Access and Identity Management
The OpenAthens framework of products and services enable organisations to provide millions of learners and researchers with single sign-on access to protected online resources from hundreds of publishers world-wide.

• Hosting and Web Content Management
Eduserv develops and hosts websites for many public sector organisations including DVLA, NHS, and National Science Museum.

Eduserv has a charitable mission to realise the benefits of IT for learners and researchers.