2021 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap Released

Banner image: The 2021 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap was launched 7 April 2022 by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment.

In early April 2022 the Australian Government announced the 2021 National Research Infrastructure (NRI) Roadmap and committed $900 million over the next 5 years for the tools, technology and skills to keep Australian research internationally competitive.

The Roadmap follows a 12 month consultation process with the research community, and sets out the recommendations for the Australian government’s 5-10 year priorities and investment priorities for Australian research ecosystem and national research infrastructure.

The announcement is well timed to ensure that the critical national infrastructures making up the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), including the ARDC, are able to continue to develop their pathways for long-term and high-impact projects towards 2028.

The ARDC supports the key recommendations in the Roadmap:

• adopt the NRI Principles
• provide continuity and long-term funding to NRI
• adopt a challenge framework to support NRI planning and investment
• establish an Expert NRI Advisory Group to drive a more effective NRI ecosystem
• drive a more integrated NRI ecosystem
• improve industry engagement with NRI
• develop a National Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy
• prepare Australia to capitalise on future opportunities.

The Roadmap highlights the ARDC’s journey to integrate and evolve eResearch services, which has enabled us to introduce the cross-discipline thematic research data commons to build a strong fabric of national digital infrastructure, platforms, services, people and policies to support the greatest number of researchers across the priority areas of the Roadmap.

We look forward to actively participating in the development of the National Digital Research Infrastructure (NDRI) strategy as it meshes closely with our evolving activities. The NDRI will include improving Australia’s ability to generate and analyse data and improve digital skills for researchers, and the ARDC is well positioned to provide knowledge, expertise and guidance at a national scale across disciplines and platforms.

We also look forward to participating in the upcoming investment process to enable exciting new projects to support new and improved national digital research infrastructure for Australian researchers.

“The Roadmap again reinforces the critical nature of data—for decision making, for commercialisation and for fundamental research, and we’ll be working closely with our NCRIS colleagues to ensure Australian researchers are internationally competitive through access to high-quality data assets, platforms, policies, people and training,” said ARDC CEO, Rosie Hicks.

The 2021 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap is a critical step in planning and delivering the next generation of Australia’s national collaborative research infrastructure. We encourage you to read the report, stay in touch, and join us in ensuring Australia’s researchers have the infrastructure they need to deliver world-class, high-impact research outputs for Australia.

Read the 2021 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap report.

The ARDC is funded through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) to support national digital research infrastructure for Australian researchers.