The Challenge
Research communities need a breadth of skills from foundational to advanced to use and manipulate data to its full potential. National coordination of digital research skills supports Australian researchers to effectively access, use and develop research data infrastructure, enabling research excellence. As the Australian Government Department of Education’s 2024 National Digital Research Infrastructure (NDRI) Strategy points out:
“The strength of Australia’s NDRI ecosystem will always be underpinned by highly skilled, expert personnel responsible for operating the nation’s NDRI capabilities. … An empowered NDRI workforce will ultimately support all Australian researchers, across all disciplines, to maximise the efficient and effective use of the nation’s NDRI to continue achieving high quality, impactful research.”[1]
The ARDC’s skills focus is on 2 main groups within the research workforce:
- researchers who need to upskill to maximise their use of NDRI
- a skilled NDRI workforce who deliver the research platforms, services and tools that researchers require.
Meeting the demand on both fronts is a pressing issue for the sector as there are long-standing skills challenges across both groups.
The Approach
The ARDC Strategy responds to these challenges by providing national leadership in digital research infrastructure (DRI) skills development for DRI providers and users.
Our activities also align and respond to the 2024 NDRI Strategy, which recognises the need for a digitally skilled workforce that can unlock the full potential of Australia’s digital research capabilities. Meeting this challenge requires underpinning national infrastructure with training frameworks for researchers and the NDRI workforce. Within NDRI facilities, the workforce faces rapid technological and societal developments, especially in the digital space. This includes the rise of mainstream AI, quantum computing, data interoperability and the call for more appropriate data governance and authority to control the use of data.
To ensure researchers succeed, the ARDC Skilled Workforce Development program has a broad but focused ambition, which means thinking big while strategically pursuing specific objectives.
The ARDC is expanding on existing skills initiatives to enhance their scope and impact, including:
The ARDC is further developing and implementing the ARDC Digital Research Capabilities and Skills Framework (or Skills Framework), a national digital research skills framework.
The Skills Framework identifies the skills and knowledge required to do digital research effectively, including the skills emerging as a result of rapid technological advancements and the exponential rise in the number of data sources.The Skills Framework supports training programs to enhance the skills of researchers, data scientists and other data professionals. It helps equip them with foundational and advanced digital research skills, which enable them to adopt innovative methods and tools and to tackle complex research challenges. Additionally, it positions them to leverage emerging opportunities in data linking, AI, machine learning and quantum computing.
Partners on ARDC projects and from around the world collaborate with us to add new skill sets, enhance the current framework and enable new implementations.
The ARDC is delivering Digital Research Skills Australasia (DReSA), a national training discovery registry, in partnership with the Pawsey Research Supercomputing Centre and the National Computing Infrastructure (NCI) and with contributions from training providers.
DReSA makes it easier for learners, trainers and training providers to find digital research skills-focused events and resources.
We address new feature and functionality requests from DReSA users. Additionally, we actively recruit and include new training providers to establish a comprehensive national training registry.
The ARDC leads the development of strategic trainer communities within the Australian research sector. As a member organisation of The Carpentries, we offer a scholarship to expedite the efficacy of professional trainers and peer-led researcher training. We coordinate a national Carpentries Network to build relationships among certified Instructors for them to teach workshops at host organisations.
The ARDC is an active participant in Research Bazaar (ResBaz) events across Australia. ResBazzes are localised community events connecting researchers to digital skills, compute services and platforms built on national infrastructure, such as the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud. Our digital research skills approach supports coordination of ResBazzes in the Oceania region, bringing organising teams together to strengthen and sustain skills communities.
The ARDC draws on local and international networks to facilitate targeted and accessible pathways for researchers and research support professionals to attain digital research skills.
Since 2019, skills trainers have come together at our annual digital research skills summit. Each summit sees 100 to 150 attendees tackle national skills challenges and share best practices in training, skills priorities and training materials.
The ARDC is planning a series of skills forums to bridge the gap between annual Skills Summits and maintain ongoing conversations and momentum around digital research skills priorities.
The ARDC is co-designing and developing national skills resources that can be easily shared and reused. We collaborate with the training community and research infrastructure providers to coordinate the creation of skills training coursework and materials. Our approaches include:
- creating training and resources for providers and users of research infrastructure where there are identified skills gaps
- reusing and repurposing existing training materials
- developing resources as part of a trainer toolkit to support training delivery.
Our areas of focus for skills, training and community building are:
- the skills and community engagement needed for delivery and uptake of the 3 ARDC Thematic Research Data Commons, namely the People Research Data Commons for health and medical research, Planet Research Data Commons for earth and environmental research, and HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons
- skills training for users of the ARDC’s Nectar Research Cloud and national information infrastructure services, including Research Data Australia, Research Vocabularies Australia, Identifier services, Research Link Australia and Health Data Australia
- skills uplift across the national digital research infrastructure (NDRI) workforce with a specific focus on the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and their affiliate staff
- key communities of practice in skills building, with representatives from infrastructure provider, infrastructure user, skills trainer and international communities and initiatives.
Collaboration
The ARDC is not facing these skills challenges alone. To develop and deliver national digital research skills activities, initiatives and approaches, we collaborate with project partners, lead agencies, research infrastructure providers such as NCRIS, international organisations and other relevant stakeholders.
We invite individuals with an interest in digital research skills development to contact the Skilled Workforce Development team with requests for further information or to provide any feedback on our current activities.
Target Outcomes
Australia’s collective investment in digital research infrastructure is under-exploited without a highly skilled research workforce. The ARDC’s national leadership in data and digital skills workforce development enables Australian researchers to maximise their use of national research infrastructure, new tools and applications.
Our areas of focus lead to increased visibility of digital research skills training events and resources and more skilled and effective researchers, research infrastructure providers and trainer communities.
Other anticipated outcomes include:
- localised collaborations to scale the delivery of digital research skills training, enhancing impact of our Research Data Commons focus areas and partnered projects
- implementing a national skills framework to facilitate consistent skills and workforce development by leveraging the capabilities of NCRIS
- nationally coordinated approaches help streamline skills and training efforts and avoid redundancy, address and reduce specific skills gaps, and create a research workforce that is adaptable to technological advancement and changing demands
- institutional recognition of the value of investing in data and digital research skills, which helps accelerate Australian research and innovation
- research communities with confidence and skills to co-design and facilitate future ARDC-partnered projects.
Reference
- Australian Government Department of Education. National Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy. 2024. https://www.education.gov.au/national-research-infrastructure/resources/national-digital-research-infrastructure-strategy Jump back
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