Today the UK Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts MP, announced the release of £14 million to fund the second phase of the ESRC's investment in Big Data. At a speech at the High Performance Computing and Big Data Conference, Mr Willetts outlined what steps are being taken to strengthen the UK’s competitive advantage in Big Data.

We are very pleased that three books in the series Universities and Lifelong Learning, inspired by the PURE project, and published by Manchester University Press are now available. Details can be found at the MUP website.

Please find below details of the first three books in a new PASCAL book series on Universities and Lifelong Learning being published shortly by Manchester University Press. The series editor is PASCAL Director for Europe, Professor Mike Osborne of the University of Glasgow, and we are very pleased that so many of our associates and principals are involved in the project.

This work was inspired in the first instance by the PURE project, and a number of other books will follow.