University of Cambridge uses Dropbox Business to power collaboration

Founded in 1209, The University of Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university. For the past eight centuries, the University’s scholars have been pioneers, with notable alumni including eminent mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, and heads of state.

The mission of the University of Cambridge is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

While evaluating its technology requirements, the University conducted an audit. This uncovered over 250 unique use cases of staff and students needing an EFSS and collaboration tool, which made it a priority solution to be implemented.

"We want to ensure that our staff and students have the best choice of technology solutions available to them at their fingertips, and therefore offering Dropbox has given everyone the opportunity to work more effectively with co-workers both here and elsewhere," said Dr. Mark Ferrar, Chief Architect, University Information Systems, University of Cambridge.

"We want to ensure that our staff and students have the best choice of technology solutions available to them at their fingertips, and therefore offering Dropbox has given everyone the opportunity to work more effectively with co-workers both here and elsewhere."

Prof. Richard G. McMahon and his team at the Institute of Astronomy adopted Dropbox for its ease of use and sharing abilities. Currently looking for quasars using telescopes from across the world, Professor McMahon is often remote, working from different time zones and collaborating with his Cambridge researchers back on campus. The team uses a variety of operating systems such as Linux, macOS, and iOS, and the ability to use Smart Sync across his devices has enabled McMahon and his team to share, edit, and collaborate on research data wherever they are.

Dr. Jyoti Khadake, senior data scientist in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and her BioResource team use Dropbox as a platform to communicate and exchange information. Prior to moving to Dropbox, the team members, who are working on biological studies, previously had to send data sets via SFTP, with each transfer requiring individual logins. Now the team has a secure location to swiftly share data, with every file having its own protection via a unique password, making the sharing of information much faster and far more secure.

"Its scalability and ease of use are key factors in us making Dropbox available to everyone at the University. We want to offer the best choice of collaboration tools for our staff and students so they can focus on their important work, and Dropbox fits perfectly into this."

"We recently deployed Office 365 and Dropbox has perfectly complemented the package. We now offer a choice of tools to aid collaboration for all staff and students at the university," Ferrar stated. "Its scalability and ease of use are key factors in us making Dropbox available to everyone at the University. We want to offer the best choice of collaboration tools for our staff and students so they can focus on their important work, and Dropbox fits perfectly into this."

The University of Cambridge is just one of over 6,000 educational institutions worldwide that we’re helping to be more connected and collaborative.

To learn how your institution can increase the speed of research and quality of learning, visit the Dropbox Education site.