Australia’s health sector is rich with research activity, from hospitals and clinical trials facilities to universities and non-profits. Yet despite this productivity, information about the health innovation ecosystem remains fragmented, making it difficult to understand who is doing what and with whom.
This fragmented system makes it challenging for researchers to find industry partners, for policymakers to identify areas of national research capability, and for businesses to identify domain experts. These missed connections lead to duplicated research efforts, lost opportunities for collaboration, and ultimately, slower progress in delivering health interventions that could benefit patients and communities nationwide.
To address this challenge, Australia needs a clear, more connected picture of its health innovation ecosystem – one that links projects with researchers, publications, organisations and funding. The ARDC’s Research Link Australia (RLA) platform has supported a new collaborative project to do just that.
The RLA Data Community of Practice (Data CoP) for Health and Wellbeing project was led by the Research Graph Foundation, in partnership with Orygen, the University of Canberra’s Health Research Institute, HEAL Network, Griffith University, Digital Health CRC, and Infoxchange.
The project connected fragmented research data from the 6 partner organisations with RLA – a national ARDC service that consolidates information about Australia’s research and innovation activities into a single, searchable platform.
By creating a secure cloud-based environment to store and connect data from the partners, the project facilitated and built on a large network of research information including:
Through this project, the data was transformed into graphs and interactive dashboards to visualise research collaboration patterns and networks. A series of workshops were also held with subject matter experts to generate collaboration insights from the data
“We used a data Community of Practice methodology, where we worked with our partners to bring together two main sources of data: the partner’s datasets and RLA data. Then, the group produced several insights from this data and discussed them at Data CoP workshops, facilitating a data-informed dialogue,” said Associate Professor Amir Aryani, Head of Swinburne Social Data Analytics Lab and Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra Health Research Institute, who provided stewardship for the Data CoP.
However, A/Prof Aryani emphasised that the true impact of the project lay not in the data visualisations themselves, but in the new ways of thinking they inspired around research–industry collaboration. The project enabled partners to map, qualify, and better understand their collaboration network. This outcome reveals insights that not only deepened existing partnerships but also uncovered new opportunities for collaboration.
“The perspective of the CoP partners substantially changed when they got access to the data. In the absence of this work, they had some perception about who they are, what they do, and who they work with. However, once they go through this process, the line of conversation changes. It has a transformative effect on how these groups see themselves situated in their own network,” he said. “In a lot of cases, the project caused a substantial strategic change in the way these groups think about their own collaboration.”
As a key partner in the Data CoP, Infoxchange applied this methodology to visualise the collaboration network of organisations in their Data Catalyst Network, including 139 industry partners connected across different funded projects.
“This is the first time the Not-for-Profit (NFP) sector has been involved in mapping health and wellbeing research collaborations and has shown the enthusiasm of NFPs for building collaborations and capacity for future work. This pilot among NFPs with data capability is a promising start for further exploration among the broader NFP sector,” said Dr Kristen Moeller-Saxone, Data Capacity Lead at Infoxchange.
The project outcomes also helped Orygen prepare for an important institutional Research Review. “I have to say, it was a watershed moment to see these data as we have been trying to get visibility over this since I started in this job.” said Professor Eoin Killackey, Orygen Chief of Research.
Through the RLA platform and interactive dashboards, the Data CoP connected thousands of research projects, people, institutions, and outputs. However, as A/Prof Aryani said, “The real outcome is a cultural transition. Now, the CoP partners understand how important it is to map collaboration, because they can now see the things they didn’t know.”
Professor Luis Salvador-Carulla, Deputy Director of the Health Research Institute at the University of Canberra, said, “The project has allowed us to better understand our strengths and weaknesses or gaps. […] It allowed us to understand the importance of research networks as key information to understand the capability and sustainability of the performance of both individual researchers and research teams or units.”
Echoing this sentiment, Mr Alessandro Luongo, Director of Operations at the Digital Health CRC, said, “Participation in the CoP has helped us recognise that the information we considered largely administrative can indeed help others when captured and shared meaningfully. We have grown an appreciation of how well-structured data we are sitting on can support better linkages, discoverability, and opportunities for our partners.”
The project has supported partner organisations in improving their data management practices and gaining insights into their research and research-industry collaborations. By contributing the collected data to the RLA, it also builds a broader picture of collaboration patterns and gaps, helping to reshape strategy and foster more effective collaboration across the health sector.
Find information on Australian health research and innovation activities and expertise on Research Link Australia.
The ARDC is enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) to support national digital research infrastructure for Australian researchers.
