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JISC partners with MEaP’s Research branch (MaCTRI)
National Spotlight: How MEaP’s Research Branch, MaCTRI, Secured Its Future as a Leading Community Research Institute
JISC Features MEaP, MaCTRI and Dr. Ornette Clennon
The Making Education a Priority (MEaP) organisation and its research arm, the MEaP Academy Community Training and Research Institute (MaCTRI), have been featured in a national case study by JISC. The article, titled “A local community education and heritage organisation with its own research infrastructure,” highlights how MEaP secured critical digital access necessary to maintain its global research profile.
About JISC
This partnership with and recognition by JISC—formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee—is a significant institutional milestone. JISC is the UK’s trusted, not-for-profit digital body, responsible for providing core infrastructure, security, and technology leadership to UK universities and research institutions. To be featured by JISC means MEaP is now positioned among organisations like Samaritans and major UK universities that are recognised for implementing robust, nationally compliant digital solutions.
The Context: From Independence to Infrastructural Resilience
MEaP’s distinction lies in its successful blend of deep community engagement with rigorous academic standards. Operating as a community-based supplementary school covering Greater Manchester, MEaP focuses on promoting social inclusion and advancing the education of young people, particularly those from ethnic and disadvantaged backgrounds. Its pedagogy emphasises the cultural heritage of each student, developing educational attainment alongside emotional confidence and resilience.
The organisation’s intellectual engine, MaCTRI, is a community legacy organisation that emerged from the former Critical Race and Ethnicity Research Cluster at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).
The Critical Challenge
When MaCTRI transitioned to fully independent operation from MMU in 2021, it faced an immediate threat to its research continuity: the loss of access to essential, high-quality e-library resources licensed through the university’s institutional credentials. Since MaCTRI’s transformative programmes attract researchers from around the world , securing continuous, seamless access to academic databases was an existential necessity.
The Technical Solution
To solve this, Dr. Ornette Clennon, Director of Research and Head of Institute at MaCTRI, engaged the services of JISC. Working with JISC’s trust and identity consultancy, MaCTRI implemented the open-source identity management software, Shibboleth.
This technical deployment was critical. It allowed MaCTRI to autonomously manage and authenticate its own researchers securely, ensuring they could access subscribed digital academic resources from third-party publishers without relying on legacy university credentials. The successful implementation of this solution is powerful proof that an independent, community-led research body can successfully establish digital sovereignty while adhering to national security and trust standards.
Spotlight on Dr. Ornette Clennon: Architect of the Digital Mission
The success of this infrastructure project is a testament to the strategic vision of Dr. Ornette Clennon. As a distinguished critical race scholar and Visiting Research Fellow, Dr. Clennon is central to the MEaP organisation and its mission.
His leadership demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how complex, national-level technological solutions can directly advance a social justice mission. Dr. Clennon is an active community activist at local, national, and international levels, and his enterprise and activism have been previously recognised with the NCCPE Beacons New Partnerships Award. By proactively solving the technical problem of resource access, he has ensured that MEaP/MaCTRI—an institution dedicated to serving ethnic and disadvantaged communities —remains fully integrated into the global research ecosystem.
Strategic Implications for Making Education a Priority
The JISC case study is more than a simple success story; it fundamentally changes MEaP’s and MaCTRI’s external standing.
- Achieving Institutional Maturity: The case study confirms MEaP’s capacity to manage complex, professional-grade IT infrastructure, effectively demonstrating its long-term viability as an independent institution.
- Alignment with National Policy: By proving its model works, MEaP directly contributes to JISC’s strategic goal of broadening the reach of the UK’s Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI). This technical integration (interoperability) positions MEaP to initiate collaborations, share data, and pursue grant applications with other HE institutions seamlessly.
- A Model for Equity: The success demonstrates that research led by activist and community-rooted organisations can meet the rigorous technical standards of the national research body. This makes MEaP a leading example of how to equalise investment and prevent barriers from being inadvertently embedded within the research community structure.
The JISC feature solidifies MEaP/MaCTRI’s status: not just as a highly effective educational organisation whose focus area span beyond supplementary school and research institute, but as a national model for independent, resilient, and socially impactful community research.
MEaP: a self-determined collective force for social change
The JISC case study solidifies MEaP’s role as a national infrastructure model, but its true impact stems from its holistic, community-first vision. As a powerful consortium of black-led organisations, MEaP’s mission has strategically expanded to ten core focus areas: Community Outreach, Early Years, Employability, External Education, Family Mediation, Organisation Set Up, Knowledge Sharing, Research, Staff Development, and Supplementary Schools. This wide-ranging mandate reflects MEaP’s commitment to supporting community individuals through every stage of their personal advancement—not only in times of need but also by celebrating and encouraging good times. This enduring commitment is steered by a distinguished board, including Dr. and Pastor Esther Oludipe (Highway Hope), Jumoke Quadri (Nurturing Foundations), Henry Ngawoofah (GIFT Academy), Amber Ambisai and Dr. Ornette Clennon (MaCTRI, Twilight Academy), whose collective expertise ensures MEaP remains a resilient, self-determined force for social change.