Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities

The Challenge

Data is relevant to self-determination and self-governance. It’s important that Indigenous data ecosystems remain accountable to Indigenous Australians.

The Indigenous Data Network (IDN) was established to:

• empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to decide their own local data priorities, including how their data is used
• ensure those decisions are supported and reinforced by our national legal and policy frameworks, as well as the FAIR and CARE data principles and principles of Indigenous data democracy, stewardship, analysis, dissemination and infrastructure.

The Response

Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities Phase 1: 2022 to 2024

Representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers, organisations and communities across Australia, this project reviewed and refined national and international frameworks of Indigenous Data Governance (IDG) and Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) to collectively strengthen the foundations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data governance principles, which are being translated and applied to Indigenous research data tools and infrastructure. The Indigenous Data Network (IDN) delivered an Indigenous research capability program that celebrates, supports and enhances the capabilities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and researchers at the interface of research data science and Indigenous knowledge systems.

The Improving Indigenous Research Capability project was delivered through 3 streams of development activities:

• social architecture: empowering Indigenous data governance and sovereignty
• technical architecture: building the foundations for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Data Commons
• core national Indigenous data assets: building an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander spatio-temporal framework.

Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities Phase 2: 2024 to 2028

Phase 2 of the Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities project will extend the foundations developed in Phase 1: Indigenous Data Catalogue, resources and extensions, and foundational Indigenous research data tools and infrastructure. 

The Indigenous Data Network (IDN) and project partners will continue to build the Indigenous research capability program to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and researchers at the interface of research data science and Indigenous knowledge systems to have access to effective research data tools. The project will achieve this by working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data custodians, focusing on how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities engage with, and what they aspire to, in the governance of their data.

Who Will Benefit

Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities supports HASS and Indigenous research communities, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The Partners

Phase 2 partners (2024 to 2028, doi.org/10.3565/pr3g-s109):

• Indigenous Data Network, The University of Melbourne (lead)
• ARDC
• The Australian National University
• QUT
• The University of Adelaide
• Griffith University
• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)
• Empowered Communities
• CSIRO 
• Kimberley Aboriginal Health Research Alliance (KAHRA)
• Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)
• National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
• National Imaging Facility
• KurrawongAI

Phase 1 partners (2022 to 2024, doi.org/10.47486/HIR003):

• Griffith University
• Indigenous Data Network, The University of Melbourne (lead)
• ARDC
• The Australian National University
• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)
• The University of Queensland
• Empowered Communities
• QUT
• CSIRO
• National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)
• Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
• Kimberley Aboriginal Health Research Alliance (KAHRA)
• The University of Adelaide

Associate Professor Kristen Smith, Research Director, Indigenous Studies Unit and Indigenous Data Network, The University of Melbourne, said, “Our partnership with ARDC in the HASS and Indigenous RDC has facilitated the development of foundational Indigenous social and technical research data architecture and core national Indigenous data assets at a critical juncture in our nation’s history. 

“The partnership has initiated the first steps of building a bridge between international best practice data science and data governance, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and worldviews by fostering a national collaborative network of partners, spanning universities, the GLAM sector, government, and the Aboriginal community-controlled sector, that have assembled to undertake this vital work.”

Outcomes

This project is supporting the creation of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Data Commons.

Phase 2 of the project will be delivered by a foundation stream focusing on Indigenous Data Governance and Sovereignty, and 4 parallel sub-streams of activities. Collectively, these streams of activities lay the foundation to build national Indigenous research capabilities, framed by a set of agreed Indigenous Data Governance principles that can leverage existing data assets, linking them with new and existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data assets.

This project is also generating a detailed account of research data ecosystems, including how research data is distributed and used for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

To date, the project has: 

• established foundational Indigenous sovereign data capabilities, tools and infrastructure
• established novel data governance frameworks that are culturally appropriate and aligned with community needs
• developed the Indigenous Data Network (IDN) Catalogue Project, which includes:
  • Data Catalog
  • Spatial Data Catalog
  • Vocabularies
• developed a tool to calculate levels of FAIR and CARE, and other scores for a test set of catalogued Indigenous datasets. 
• digitised initial legacy assets
• translated interoperability between data infrastructures and platforms
• translated traditional indexing methods to machine-readable metadata
• developed schema, which translates existing metadata to a consistent basis
• delivered training programs and workshops that significantly enhanced the capabilities of Indigenous data technicians and researchers
• fostered strong international partnerships and integrated Indigenous knowledge systems with research data science. 

The wider Indigenous research data community has actively engaged with the project across multiple seminars, workshops, forums and intensive use cases with Indigenous communities, government agency partners and universities. 

Highlights include: 

• the delivery of the Indigenous Data Governance and Sovereignty Roundtable held at the University of Melbourne – watch the recordings
• the Indigenous data training workshop delivered at the 2023 ARDC HASS and Indigenous Computational Skills Summer School
• a unit of coursework is now available for the University of Melbourne Master of Public Health, Indigenous Data Governance in Health (POPH90308) 
• the launch of the University of Queensland Sandpit in the Sandstone project
• two ARDC Indigenous Interns were hosted with IDN: Lisa Rigney and Liam Jensen.

Published papers and articles include:

• Thieberger N., Aird M., Bracknell C., Gibson J., Harris A., Langton M., Sculthorpe G. and Simpson J. (2024) “The New Protectionism: Risk Aversion and Access to Indigenous Heritage Records”, Archives & Manuscripts, 510, p. e10971. doi: 10.37683/asa.v51.10971
• Reflections on sustaining Trade and Kinship Traditions between Makassans and Yolŋu, Melbourne Asia Review, DOI: 10.37839/MAR2652-550X15.5

More Information

• View the final project plan for phase 2
• Read the response to feedback on the draft project plan for phase 2
• Learn about Sandpit in the Sandstone, a project focused on the collections held in the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums of the University of Queensland.
• Read an article about the project from the University of Melbourne, Indigenous Data Governance for the 21st Century
• Learn more about the project from the Indigenous Data Network
• Read the revised project plan for phase 1, and the response to feedback
• Watch the initial phase 1 project plan webinar.