In this update from the ARDC’s Planet Research Data Commons (Planet RDC), we share opportunities to contribute to a new national survey and the latest news from our programs.
The important role of Australia’s national research infrastructure for invasive species management was highlighted in a paper by Dr Isabelle Onley and colleagues published in Biodiversity and Conservation last week. Dr Onley and colleagues mention Planet RDC and one of our initiatives, Biosecurity Commons, alongside fellow NCRIS facility, the Atlas of Living Australia, as key species data and information sharing and analysis platforms. It’s great to see our efforts to help reduce biodiversity loss and manage invasive species highlighted in the academic literature.
Our new Environmental Indicators Initiative is now in co-design. The initiative aims to deliver FAIR datasets and services to enable robust, repeatable environmental indicators. We will be hosting a community co-design workshop in Q2, 2025, and will share details on that workshop soon. To share your experience and contribute to co-design, please register your interest in the Planet Research Data Commons.
We’re pleased to announce that we’re continuing to partner with AusTraits to enhance the national database of plant traits. Phase 2 of the project is increasing the completeness of trait data for Australian plants, delivering new synthesised products, and deploying new workflows for aggregating trait observations for other facets of biodiversity, such as physiology and animal traits. Learn more about the AusTraits project.
We are thrilled to congratulate Scientia Professor Veena Sahajwalla on being awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2025 Australia Day Honours. This prestigious recognition celebrates her pioneering contributions to recycling science and materials sustainability.
Prof Sahajwalla is leading the ARDC Planet Research Data Commons project, the Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub Domain Data Portal. This project is ensuring data produced by the NESP Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub is consistent, discoverable and accessible to enable environment and sustainability research and translation
Congratulations, Prof Sahajwalla, on this well-deserved honour.
Vocabularies and data models (such as metadata schema) are a core part of the FAIR Data Principles and improve AI readiness. Their application enhances the meaning of data and its ability to be reused and integrated.
We have seen first-hand the successes of partners applying such resources to increase data utility, including the International Marine Observing System (IMOS), Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (APPN) and AustTraits, to name just some.
The ARDC has launched a survey to learn more about your experiences and requirements for publishing and accessing information resources such as vocabularies, ontologies and metadata schemas, including via Research Vocabularies Australia. This information will be used to help ARDC improve our services to better support your work. The survey closes on 11 April 2025. Take the survey now >
MODs is establishing shared infrastructure, services and standards to enable ecoacoustic and camera trap data processing. Read the latest updates on the program strategy and achievements in the recent steering committee communique.
Learn how Open Ecoacoustics is helping researchers listen to the land to preserve Australia’s native animals and ecosystems in our recent case study.
A new journal article in Biological Reviews highlights the potential of camera trap research in Australia to transform wildlife monitoring and management with the support of the emerging WildObs infrastructure. Read the latest news.
Dataspaces are revolutionising collaboration across research, industry, and government by enabling secure, controlled, and interoperable data-sharing frameworks while maintaining data sovereignty. There are currently over 140 dataspaces worldwide driving innovation, services, and research.
Join the Australian Dataspaces Community, a collaborative hub for individuals interested in exploring and discussing the evolving landscape of dataspaces in Australia, where you can stay up to date and participate. The community includes groups such as the Australian Dataspaces Implementers Network, which meets monthly to share and collaborate on the practical work happening in Australia. If you’re based in Australia and engaged in or have an interest in actively working on dataspace solutions, become a part of the community. Learn more and join us.
The EcoCommons team has been busy creating notebooks that provide tutorials on accessing environmental data and developing and deploying ecological modelling workflows.
In one notebook, you can calculate 2 key ecological metrics: Extent of Occurrence (EOO) and Area of Occupancy (AOO), for the common wombat – learn more.
Another notebook helps you discover effective strategies to handle imbalanced species data using background point generation and weighting methods to enhance species distribution model accuracy. The approaches are demonstrated via a case study on the Gang-Gang Cockatoo – learn more.
Keep up to date with EcoCommons by subscribing to the newsletter.
The Gayini Trusted Environmental Data and Information Supply Chain project is now underway. The project is establishing data, analytics and governance infrastructure that enables discovery, access and reuse of trusted data across multiple providers for environmental management, decision making and research in an area of significant environmental value.
The new research infrastructure will support the restoration of natural water flows to wetlands and promote sustainable land management, benefiting both the environment and local communities. It also supports the Nari Nari people in protecting their cultural heritage.
The project is led by the Centre for Ecosystem Science at UNSW in partnership with the Nari Nari Tribal Council, ARDC, Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group (MDWWG), The Nature Conservancy Australia, Charles Sturt University – Gulbali Institute, NSW Fisheries (NSW DPI), NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (NSW DCCEEW), Griffith University – Australian Rivers Institute, WaterNSW, NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust, University of Melbourne, James Cook University, Murray-Darling Basin Authority, and other partners.
Please encourage your colleagues to register their interest in the Planet Research Data Commons to receive regular updates.
Read on to discover the latest news, upcoming events, recent publications, new resources and items open for submission.
Kind regards,
Hamish Holewa
Director, Planet Research Data Commons
ARDC
The latest news from the Planet RDC and ARDC for earth and environmental sciences research.
The call for abstracts for both SciDataCon and RDA P25 are now open! This is your opportunity to contribute to International Data Week 2025. Submit your abstract to have your research featured and join the global data community. Learn more >
Read recent journal papers acknowledging ARDC services and ARDC-supported platforms and data assets.
Onley et al. Biodiversity data sharing platforms are vital for the management and prevention of biological invasions. Biodiversity and Conservation.
Mentions Planet RDC and Biosecurity Commons.
Blanchard et al. Detecting, attributing, and projecting global marine ecosystem and fisheries change: FishMIP 2.0. Earth’s Future.
Used the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud.
Fahey et al. Floristic classifications and bioregionalizations are not predictors of intra-specific evolutionary patterns. Nature Communications.
Used ARDC Research Data Australia.
Clarke et al. How to Identify Priority Sites for Invasive Alien Species Policy and Management, Diversity and Distributions.
Used the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud.
Access new and recently updated resources from the ARDC.
Access datasets, tools and other resources created or enhanced through the ARDC’s Bushfire Data Challenges program for bushfire-related research, development, planning and response. These outputs are now being used by researchers and government agencies in Australia and internationally.
Are you looking for a quick and easy way to find events and resources that strengthen your digital research skills? Look no further than the DReSA website. As a catalogue for digital research training, DReSA makes it easy for learners, trainers and leaders to find relevant and targeted educational material. DReSA is a partnership between ARDC, NCI, the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre (Pawsey) and the digital research trainer community.
Containers are a way to easily distribute software across different computational environments. Learn how to make containers findable, accessible, reusable and interoperable (FAIR) to maximise the benefits of your research software.
EcoAssets provides biodiversity information for environmental reporting at state, territory, and national levels. EcoAssets is the work of 3 NCRIS national research infrastructures: the Atlas of Living Australia, IMOS and TERN Australia, in partnership with ARDC, to deliver an example of best-practice cross-domain data integration.
The EcoAssets update contains 2 datasets: Australian Species Occurrences 1900-2023 and Environmental Monitoring and Observations Effort 2010-2023.
Are you looking for a way to simplify collaborations and enhance the reproducibility of your research? BinderHub enables you to turn your code, data, and computational environments into shareable and executable packages.
This update is sent to all those who registered their interest in the Planet Research Data Commons. To register for updates, please complete the form below.
