Improving Indigenous Research Capability

The Challenge

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.

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

The Response

Representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers, organisations and communities across Australia, this project will review and refine 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 will be translated and applied to Indigenous research data tools and infrastructure. The Indigenous Data Network (IDN) will deliver 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 will be 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.

Who Will Benefit

This project supports HASS and Indigenous researchers, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The Partners

This project is a collaboration between the ARDC and the Indigenous Data Network at the University of Melbourne.

Target Outcomes

This project will support the creation of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Data Commons.

Collectively, our 3 streams of activities will 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 will also generate 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.

More Information

• Learn about Sandpit to Sandstone, a project with this initiative focused on the collections held in 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, and the response to feedback
• Watch the initial project plan webinar.