The Big Lottery Fund has awarded £200,000 to the Third Sector Research Centre to create a new website that signposts visitors to various research reports that have been written about the voluntary sector.

The Third Sector Knowledge Portal has been built in partnership with the British Library and is billed as a "one-stop knowledge resource" containing evidence and links to others' evidence on a range of subjects relevant to the sector.

These include academic research, reports from charities themselves, government publications and training materials. Material will be freely downloadable if in electronic format and provided access is not restricted by the publisher.

The site, which launched on Friday, will also enable third parties to share and preserve their research and the Centre is encouraging organisations to deposit their work on the Portal.  Pete Alcock, director of the Centre, said: "This Portal will make it easier for people to find and use the wide range of research resources on the sector."

Thr Big Lottery Fund has funded the Knowledge Portal as part of the learning strand of Replication and Innovation, a new UK-wide funding programme that aims to target deep-rooted social problems.

Big Lottery Fund CEO Peter Wanless added: "The sector is not short of evidence reviews, research or information but it is often fragmented and difficult to access.

"BIG is convinced that many of the solutions to deep-rooted social problems can be found in sharing and building on existing effective practice.  A resource such as this is key to bringing about long-lasting positive changes to those most in need."

The Portal is the second sector-facing website that BIG has funded recently. Three years ago it ploughed £2.2m into KnowHow NonProfit, which described itself as "a useful, practical resource with links to other sources of information and help”.  It was subsumed within the NCVO in July after its funding ran out.