Latest Updates from the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons (July 2025)

We’re delighted to share that we’ve announced 2 new focus areas for the ARDC’s HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons in the last few weeks.

Australian Creative Histories and Futures is a new major research infrastructure initiative that will enable extensive cultural data about the creative arts in Australia to be made accessible to researchers, policymakers, arts organisations and artists. The 4-year project will be led by UNSW, in partnership with the ARDC, Flinders University, Creative Australia and ACMI. The ARDC, through its HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons, is co-investing $2.9 million in the initiative, alongside co-investment from the partners that brings the project’s total investment to $5.8 million. Read the announcement and the project page. 

The Social Science Research Infrastructure Network (SSRIN) is a new 4-year project that aims to address critical challenges faced by social science researchers in Australia, including data accessibility, usability, digital research skills gaps and fragmented research networks. The ARDC, through its HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons, is co-investing $4.43 million in the initiative, alongside co-investment from the partners that brings the total investment to $8.86 million. SSRIN is led by the Institute for Social Science Research at The University of Queensland in partnership with the ARDC, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian National University, National Centre for Healthy Ageing at Monash University, The Centre for Child Health Research at the University of Western Australia, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Life Course Centre). Read the announcement and the project page.

Last week, I spoke at the International Life Course Conference on a panel on Data Infrastructure for the Future alongside Professor David Grusky from Stanford University, Dr Chris Hatherly from the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Seb Dunne from AIHW, and Dr Luke Hendrickson from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The session was chaired by the lead of the SSRIN project, Professor Wojtek Tomaszewski, The University of Queensland, and facilitated by a CI from SSRIN, Professor Francis Mitrou, The Kids Research Institute Australia. The discussion explored the evolving landscape of data infrastructure and its role in advancing Social Science and Policy: the panel discussed innovations in data collection, integration, accessibility, ethical use and challenges.

At the ARDC, we’re busy preparing to host International Data Week 2025 in Meanjin Brisbane, on October 13 to 16. We’re thrilled that the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons and our partners will feature prominently at this exciting international event:

• Distinguished Professor Marcia Langton, who leads the Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities (IIRC) project, will be giving a keynote address
• In the session on CAREful Indigenous Data Governance, Professor Michael Haugh will give a talk on the Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA) and Becki Cook (part of IIRC) and colleagues will discuss developing a framework for enhancing data literacy in the Indigenous Australian community
• Dr Rose Barrowcliffe, a CI for LDaCA, will discuss the CARE Data Maturity model in practice, and also be part of a session on balancing ethical considerations and Open Science principles when sharing community relevant data
• ARDC’s Gavin Stanbrook will lead a panel on Approaches to Indigenous Data Governance in the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons
• Becki Cook will lead a panel on how data is empowering Indigenous communities
• ARDC’s Kit Greenhill and Adeline Wong will present a poster showing how the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Summer School empowered learners through co-designed curriculum and activities where they heard each other.

We encourage you to secure your spot for IDW 2025, and we look forward to the discussions on HASS and Indigenous data with the international community. Learn more.

I’d like to congratulate my colleague, Gavin Stanbrook, on being selected for the Friend of the Chair position in the Science & Technology Australia Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Gavin is a proud Gumbaynggirr man working at the intersection of Indigenous knowledge systems, research, and data governance. Gavin is the Program Manager for Indigenous Data Governance at the ARDC.

There are exciting upcoming events from our focus areas that I will be attending, and I encourage you and your colleagues to register: 

• 6 to 9 August: Shock of the New in Adelaide, a curated anthology performance of scenes from pivotal productions in the history of South Australian theatre guided by the Australian Creative Histories and Futures Artist in Residence. In person in Adelaide. Register now.
• 8 August: Art. Knowledge. Data. is a symposium on digital cataloguing and repatriation of historical art collections co-located with the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2025, run in partnership with the Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities project and CRNS. In person in Darwin. Register now. 
• 25 to 29 August: ARDC and LDaCA are proud to be sponsoring PULiiMA 2025, the Indigenous Languages and Technology Conference. In person in Darwin. Register now.
• 9 September: Language Data Commons of Australia: Growing a mature research infrastructure ecosystem in HASS is a panel discussion at UQ’s Research and Innovation Week. In person in Brisbane. Register now.

Read on below for more information about the upcoming events and latest news. I also want to encourage you to subscribe to the ARDC newsletter, which is sent out twice a month. It’s the best way to make sure you don’t miss any upcoming events or news.

Kind regards,

Jenny Fewster

Director, HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons
ARDC

NEWS

Partnering for Public Data Literacy: QUT Digital Media Research Centre at Woodford Folk Festival

At this year’s Woodford Folk Festival, QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), in partnership with the ARDC-supported Australian Internet Observatory, created “Data Mystics”—a public-facing activation designed to foster digital self-awareness and ethical data literacy. Just like a tarot card reader at Woodford, QUT DMRC researchers ‘read’ festival goers donated data to offer guidance and insights, helping individuals explore their digital past, digital present, and potential digital future.

Interview with Nick Thieberger, PARADISEC

ARDC-supported Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA) spoke to Associate Professor Nick Thieberger, University of Melbourne and Director of PARADISEC about his very first data collections, his experiences of archiving, curating and enriching cultural materials with The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC), and the need for a national infrastructure to store research data.

What Political Ads Are Australians Seeing Online? Astroturfing, Fake Grassroots Groups, and Outright Falsehoods

ARDC-supported Australian Internet Observatory updated data donation tools in order to observe the Australian Federal Election. Its ad tracking app was used by Australians who agreed for the observatory to map the often invisible world of digital political advertising across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Read the article about the impact of the infrastructure in The Conversation.

RESOURCES

Using TLCMap: Case Studies for Researchers

TLCMap (Time-Layered Cultural Map) is a free online tool to create digital maps for humanities and social science research. Written by Dr Claire Brennan and Dr Ana Stevenson, these case studies show TLCMap being used to collate and display European scientific expedition voyages in the Pacific before 1834, and monuments and “Big Things” across Australia.

5 Benefits of RO-Crate Data Packaging for Language Collections

If you are someone who makes decisions about a collection of language materials, you are a data steward. Read on to find out how RO-Crate data packaging could help your collection, and why the Language Data Commons of Australia use RO-Crates in their infrastructure.

EVENTS

OPEN FOR SUBMISSION

Call for Proposals: CAPOS 2025

The 2025 Canadian Australian Partnership for Open Scholarship (CAPOS) gathering will focus on “Re-Defining Open Social Scholarship in an Age of Generative ‘Intelligence’”. The gathering will include featured speakers, CAPOS partners and plenary panels, paper sessions, and more. It will run from 2 to 3 December in Canberra alongside the 2025 Digital Humanities Australasia conference. Submit your proposal by 2 September.

Do You Have an Oral History Collection That’s At Risk? 

The Identifying Precarious Victorian Oral History Collections Project, part of ARDC-supported Language Data Commons of Australia, is gathering information about precarious collections that are at risk of being lost in Victoria, Australia. 

Oral history collections hold invaluable insights into our historical, cultural and linguistic past, yet little is known about at-risk collections. This project is taking an important first step by identifying and listing details about these collections in Victoria. Learn more about the project and record the details of your precarious oral history collection by 31 August 2025.

Call for Proposals: ARDC Digital Research Skills Summit 2025

The ARDC Digital Research Skills Summit 2025 will be held on 20 October in Brisbane. Join the Summit to share your expertise, experiences, and innovations in research skills training. This one-day, in-person conference is designed for trainers, by trainers.

You are invited to submit a proposal for a session that addresses the theme “Listen” and explores topics crucial to our community. We encourage submissions from individuals at all stages of their training careers, particularly from diverse institutional and disciplinary backgrounds. Submissions close 15 August.

Digital Platform Research Survey

The Australian Internet Observatory, one of the focus areas of the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons, asks you to share your tools and data needs via its Digital Platform Research Survey. Digital platform research often involves complex data, multiple methods, and a variety of tools. The Australian Internet Observatory is running a survey to get input from researchers and professionals to inform the design of future research infrastructure, data collection tools, visualisations, and training programs in Australia and beyond.

The survey seeks responses from individuals and organisations working in education, government, civil society, and commercial sectors who:

• are engaged in or planning digital platform research
• use or need digital data, tools, or infrastructure.

The survey takes approximately 5–8 minutes – please take the survey now.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Read a selection of recent journal papers acknowledging ARDC services and ARDC-supported platforms and data assets. When you acknowledge the ARDC, you support our ongoing sustainability.

Schweinberger & Haugh. Reproducibility and transparency in interpretive corpus pragmatics. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics.

• Supported by the Language Data Commons of Australia.

Verhulst et al. Participatory Approaches to Responsible Data Reuse and Establishing a Social License. In: Global Public Goods Communication.

• Mentions the ARDC-supported Language Data Commons of Australia

Hames, Haugh, & Musgrave. (2025). “How is that unparliamentary?”: The metapragmatics of ‘unparliamentary’ language in the Australian Federal Parliament. Lingua. 

• Used the Language Data Commons of Australia.

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