Discover innovative tools, datasets and workflows that drive impactful, data-informed research in humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) with these recordings and resources from the 2025 HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Symposium.
Researchers in humanities, arts and social sciences domains and those who work with Indigenous data.
By engaging with this resource, you will:
Found:
The HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons is transforming research in Australia by delivering national-scale digital infrastructure that makes research easier, faster and more connected. Our annual Symposium brings together researchers, data custodians and communities to showcase innovative tools, datasets, and workflows that enable impactful, data-driven research.
This resource captures key insights from the 2025 Symposium and provides links to tools, training and infrastructure you can use in your own research.
The third annual ARDC HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Symposium was held at UTS on Gadigal Land, Sydney. The event explored how digital research infrastructure is reshaping humanities, arts and social sciences research across Australia.
The Commons empowers researchers to:
This session includes the opening address and a thought-provoking panel discussion on the future of HASS research and the role of digital infrastructure.
Panel topics:
Speakers:
Moderator: Dr Nichola Burton, Programs Architect, HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons, ARDC.
The Symposium showcased a range of tools and platforms designed to make research more accessible and impactful.
Presented by A/Prof Kristen Smith (Indigenous Data Network, University of Melbourne) and Adegboyega Adeniran (Australian National University), this session highlights how the Commons is building an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Data Commons.
Dr Nicholas Car (KurrawongAI) introduces a model for fuzzy geometries and probabilistic topological functions, designed to map imprecise regions. It supports culturally respectful and accurate spatial data representation.
This tool is part of the Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities focus area of the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons.
The Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA) is making nationally significant language data available for research by universities and communities, ensuring enduring access through interoperable repositories, advanced analytic tools, and Indigenous-led governance that embeds appropriate community control.
This presentation provides an overview of LDaCA.
Presenters:
This session showcases tools developed within LDaCA to enable impactful language research.
Presenters:
Learn more about the Language Data Commons of Australia.
The Social Sciences Research Infrastructure Network is building infrastructure to support social science research that contributes to a more equitable and resilient society. Professor Wojtek Tomaszewski, Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, presented an overview of the focus area.
Learn more about the Social Sciences Research Infrastructure Network .
The Community Data Lab provides tools and guides for researchers working with data from galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and other collections.
Presenters:
Dr Robert Turnbull, Melbourne Data Analytics Platform, University of Melbourne, introduces Collectra, a tool that uses AI-driven pipelines combining object detection, OCR, and vision-language models to extract structured text from digitised collection materials.
Collectra will enhance the findability, interoperability, and research value of collection data by enabling accurate text extraction, metadata traceability and tailored user interfaces.
Learn more about the project to develop the Collectra tool – Enhanced Analytics for HASS and Indigenous Data.
Mike Lynch (Sydney Informatics Hub) presents Curated Collections, an enduring web publishing platform for HASS and Indigenous research data collections using Omeka-S, a leading open-source digital humanities platform.
Learn more about Curated Collections.
The Australian Internet Observatory (AIO) provides digital observability for social research through innovative data collection and analysis tools, methods and workflows.
Presentations:
Learn more about the Australian Internet Observatory.
In this presentation, Lauren Hayden and Michael Esteban demonstrate tools to visualise data download packages, which are personal data archives from platforms like social media and streaming services.
Presenters:
Featured tools:
Access the tools to visualise data download packages.
A/Prof Bryoni Trezise and Dr Caroline Wake (UNSW), co-Leads of Australian Creative Histories and Futures, introduce this ARDC HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons focus area. The initiative aims to make Australia’s rich cultural history more accessible and usable for research, policy and creative practice.
About Australian Creative Histories and Futures
Australia’s culture is extensive, dynamic and ever-evolving, and so too is its cultural data. Significant collections of our cultural data have now been amassed across the performing arts, visual arts, film, literature and other fields.
Working with four of the country’s major cultural datasets – AusStage, Design & Art Australia Online (the DAAO), data held by Creative Australia and collections from ACMI – Australian Creative Histories & Futures will seek to strengthen their technical and social architectures as well as develop their interoperability.
This is crucial not only for the researchers who study our cultural history, but for the policy makers, artists and authors who will shape our futures.
Learn more about Australian Creative Histories and Futures.
How can data tell rich, nuanced stories about the arts? This panel, held in partnership with the Australian Academy of the Humanities, explored the challenges and possibilities of Australian arts data.
Rather than standardising cultural data, ACHF seeks to foster a national data culture—one that centres creative practice and supports future cultural development.
Emeritus Professor Joanne Tompkins opened the roundtable with the provocation, “3 years from now, what do you expect ACHF to achieve for the community and of our community?“
Panel members:
Learn more about Australian Creative Histories and Futures
Build your capability in data-driven HASS research and Indigenous data governance:
View upcoming ARDC events.
The success of the Symposium and the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons is made possible through partnerships and collaboration with:
We acknowledge the contributions of all partners who co-designed and delivered the projects showcased at the Symposium. We also thank our MC Grant Sarra.
Watch the playlist of recordings from the Symposium.
Join the growing community of researchers using the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons. Register your interest below.
