Supporting Electronic Lab Notebook adoption in Academic Institutions

This poster was presented at London Labs Live in 2026 The Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) is a project funded through the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure theme (DRI) and led by the University of Southampton and the Science and Technology Facilities council (STFC). PSDI provides a platform to support UK based research through Data Services, Data Tools and Community outreach. We offer access to curated and AI ready Data Sources, cross institution Collaboration (with over 20 partners and growing) in addition to specific Guidance, Training and Case Studies.ELNs have the ability to improve current and future work in laboratory spaces. They enable structured more consistent data capture and enhance searching and sharing capabilities across institutions and research groups (no more piles of paper notebooks to look through). They provide a mechanism for good data preservation and facilitate adherence to the FAIR principles more easily. However, picking the right ELN for your institution is a difficult endeavour. Some questions that are raised are budget for licences and for dedicated staffing support, including the time required for set up, how it will integrate with your institutions IT systems, to name a few.To help institutions answer these range of questions and navigate the ever-changing landscape of ELNs PSDI (along with partners) now provides a range of tools, resources and research outputs that aim to demystify what is needed to successfully adopt an ELN because although picking an ELN is complex the hard work doesn’t finish when you purchase the licences!Through our knowledgebase we have a range of case studies and guidance articles on how ourselves or partners have interacted with ELNs or similar products. We provide access to tools such as Data Revival to help digitise older notebooks, so you don’t lose those legacy paper records. PSDI is proud to contribute to ELNFinder to support our friends in Germany by compiling a database of all ELNs currently on the market, as well as re-establishing the Electronic Research Notebook community to help groups connect with others through sharing success stories and support the growth of the adoption of such platforms.Although a lot of work has already been done, there is more to do, and we want to talk with you about your experiences (positive or negative) so come along and have a chat with us. Is there anything we can offer you in the way of support in making your next step to adopting an ELN at your institution or do you have a success story that you think needs to be shared with the community? Either way we’d love to hear!