Dr Ross Wilkinson Recognised in King’s Birthday Honours

The ARDC congratulates Dr Ross Wilkinson, the Director of the Australian National Data Service (ANDS), a predecessor of the ARDC, who has been appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to data infrastructure management in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours.

Dr Wilkinson played a crucial role in enabling the creation of ARDC in 2018 out of ANDS, National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (Nectar) and Research Data Services (RDS). He was a key driver behind the pioneering work of ANDS on data discoverability and data sharing both nationally and internationally. Through his efforts, Australia was connected to global initiatives and was part of the ground-breaking developments in that space, including the formation of the Research Data Alliance.

Although Dr Wilkinson is now retired, he remains involved in national data infrastructure, including via his long-standing role on the TERN Australia Science Advisory Committee.

Rosie Hicks, CEO, ARDC, said, “My congratulations to Ross on this prestigious honour recognising his significant contribution to the digital research infrastructure sector. His efforts have helped improve the quality of data to enable impactful research.”

Dr Andrew Treloar, Director, International Strategy, ARDC, said, “Ross was instrumental in research data infrastructure funders in Australia, along with their equivalents in the US and Europe, joining to form the Research Data Alliance. This is now an organisation that has over 14,000 members and provides an international community for research data specialists.”

Learn more about the ARDC and our history.

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