theplacetobe.net was an innovative city-wide partnership set up to improve the quality of information available about Brighton & Hove for people living in, working in, and visiting the city.

Cupp and the University of Brighton participated in this important community partnership that aimed to improve local information provision, especially through the Internet and other new technologies.

The founding partners were drawn from public, private and community sectors and have been funded by central Government to develop knowledge management solutions to meet the needs of local people and the local organisations which gather, manage and publish information.

The partnership established an innovative search engine service which only searched local websites. Using state-of-the-art Google technology users were able to get exactly what they need when looking for local information. It continued to provide a search facility for several years and was used almost 1,000,000 time since 2005.

The partnership further carried out research into local health information and funded the redevelopment of Community Brighton and the creation of a community server for use by local not for profit groups.

The project was funded by Invest to Save finding from the Government. SCIP provided the main drive for the project over several years, including project management of the partnership.

Members of Partnership

•Brighton & Hove City Council

•Brighton & Hove Primary Care Trust

•The Argus

•Brighton University

•Sussex University

•Virtual Brighton

•SCIP

•Wired Sussex