Developing an Australian Biosciences Data Capability – October 2017 update

Within five years we estimate there will be more than 30,000 Australian researchers (and somewhere around 200,000 students) in agriculture, environment and health, spread across multiple roles: bioinformaticians, researchers who use and rely on bioinformatics-driven techniques, and those (the majority) who are still lab-focussed, perhaps using online resources to interpret research findings. These groups will have a variety of data needs and a variety of skills, and they will increasingly be interacting with both local and global resources.

So, questions arise such as: What infrastructure and activity is needed now to support all to do world-class science? Within our Australian funding context (in particular, the NCRIS Roadmap), what should we prioritise to give us the greatest leverage to access international resources and collaborations? How might we anticipate the kind of transformative science envisaged in a more data-intense future?

At the EMBL-ABR All Hands meeting held in Melbourne late in 2016, key people working across data, infrastructure and bioinformatics discussed the future needs for biosciences data capability (digital data, digital tools (software), cloud technologies and compute infrastructure) with members of the existing EMBL-ABR International Scientific Advisory Group (ISAG). Bioplatforms Australia then provided funding to contract Rhys Francis (author, NCRIS eResearch investment/super science plans (2007-10) and the draft eResearch Framework (2013-15)) to work with me to establish a framework, a plan, a process. Our ideas have since been ‘road tested’ at a large workshop with Queensland-based research leaders held in Brisbane earlier this month and more workshops are being planned for other States. We are also gathering a National Reference Group of high profile domain-specific researchers to act as guides and advocates. This group is meeting online in October in preparation for discussions with government in Canberra in late November. Concurrently we are testing our proposals with our experts on the EMBL-ABR ISAG.

We want to keep everyone informed about this process and this will generally be through the EMBL-ABR communication channels. So please sign up for EMBL-ABR news at www.embl-abr.org.au to get all updates.

If you wish to contribute to these discussions, or know how your institution or research is being represented in this process, please email alonie@nullunimelb.edu.au.