Acting PVC (Research) Prof Ray Cooksey on eResearch
Colleagues, I want to talk a bit about eResearch this time around. However, before I do, I want to pause and share my thoughts on an event I had the pleasure of participating in this week: the launch of Arts New England: The UNE Centre for Research and Innovation in the Arts. This Centre will provide a focus for Arts research moving out of the shadows onto centre stage as a strength in UNE’s research profile. I know a lot of hard work and energy was poured into bringing this Centre into fruition, from staff within in the School of Arts, under the leadership of Professor Jenny Shaw, and beyond. It will give a coherence and collaborative thrust to Arts research and explicitly aims to enhance community engagement on a wide variety of fronts. It promises to transform our understanding of the role of Arts research in the creation and sharing of meanings, interpretations and perspectives. An excellent development for UNE and a wonderful launch - well done!
Now, what about eResearch? One of the important aspects of our research agenda that has been occupying my mind in the past few weeks is eResearch. Strategically, for UNE, collaboration and connectedness to other researchers, sources of data, technologies in support of research and the like are critical. Developing our eResearch capabilities will greatly enhance this collaboration and connectness, potentially on a global scale. You might well ask what is eResearch? There are technical answers to this question. For example, eResearch encompasses the following as pathways for developing new capabilities and methodologies for research, knowledge building and, potentially, knowledge transfer:
- Platforms, tools, technologies and services for collaboration and network connectivity, including rich media technologies;
- High performance computing (e.g., for intensive modelling and simulation work, high resolution/high speed graphical, statistical and spatial information work);
- Technologies and services for research data management, data sharing, storage and security, with appropriate controls on data and platform access and use.
However, perhaps a better question is what does eResearch mean for UNE? We need a more coherent and strategic approach to UNE-relevant developments in all three areas listed above. Our focus would not just be on the hard sciences, but also in the humanities, arts and social and health sciences. We already have a number of researchers around UNE who are working in or with eResearch technologies; we need to share their stories with the UNE community as a first step toward achieving a more coherent strategic approach.
Furthermore, because of our unique regional context and non-metrocentric mindset, I can see opportunities for us to explore eResearch in the context of collaboration and connectivity with communities, industries, professions and the like. Thus, it is not just collaboration and connectivity between researchers that could be facilitated by eResearch capability but also linking research into broader social, cultural and business contexts using eResearch capability. In short, I think eResearch could be a pathway to enhanced research impact.
As we move toward creating our eResearch agenda for UNE, we won’t be going it alone. Last Friday, UNE Council gave approval for UNE to join INTERSECT as a subscribing institutional member for a 3 year period. INTERSECT is the peak eResearch organisation in NSW, involving a collaboration of now seven (including UNE) NSW Universities. By joining, UNE gains access to an on-campus eResearch Analyst who will work with UNE staff to develop eResearch projects and capabilities that make sense for us strategically and which draw upon the power of the collaborative network that INTERSECT brings together. This can include gaining access to federal money set aside for specific types of eResearch capability development within the government’s Superscience infrastructure budget allocation.
We have already reaped some benefit from our budding relationship with INTERSECT in UNE’s participation (along with three other universities: Sydney, UNSW and Newcastle) in the recent eResearch survey, conducted jointly by INTERSECT and the University of Sydney. The survey has now closed and we are beginning to build the story contained in the results; a story we will share with the UNE community as soon as we have it in a digestible form. What the survey will help us do is identify areas and types of eResearch activity already evident at UNE as well as needs and opportunities for developing new capabilities. This will provide another source of information for developing our institutional eResearch agenda. One thing we do know is that UNE’s participation in the survey was excellent - we had 111 respondents (18.5% of all respondents), which proportionally represented the highest ratio of number of respondents to number of academic staff across the four universities. There is clearly a voice to be heard about eResearch at UNE.