Objectives 1-3

• Objective 1 – Increase external research income to the University

• Objective 2 – Increase the number of fields of research at UWS operating above or well above world standard

• Objective 3 – Increase the number and concentration of funded research partnerships

These objectives depend on UWS having a high-integrity research environment in which the institution will be able to support researchers in meeting their obligations under the Australian Code for the Responsible conduct of Research and funder expectations about data management, which is attractive to researchers, funders and collaborators. Building eResearch infrastructure, via the projects discussed below, and the forthcoming ITS research infrastructure roadmap will help create an environment conducive to successful income generation, and improve support for researchers aiming for high research performance.

• During 2014 eResearch will begin replicating the successful roll out of end-to-end data management at HIE by creating small, tightly focused projects with clear success criteria which are aligned to the research goals of the university (Via the AAAA data management project methodology currently in development).

• eResearch will continue to work closely with eResearch-intensive groups, for example by supporting phase two of Alveo (formerly HCS vLab) a NeCTAR grant ($1.3M, with a total project budget of ~ $3M) to set-up and implement a Virtual Laboratory for the multiple partners in the project: Above and Beyond Speech, Language and Music: A Virtual Lab for Human Communication Science.

Assumed Core Resources

• eResearch Manager – Peter Sefton

• eResearch Technical Advisor (~0.8 FTE) – Andrew Leahy

• eResearch Support Officer / eResearch Analyst – TBA

• eResearch Project Implementation Officer / Communications – Cornelia (Carmi) Cronje.

• Intersect eResearch Analyst – Peter Bugeia

Other Resources

The resources are from other areas of the university and are financed by that cost centre. They are currently on loan to the eResearch team until October 2014.

• Application Developer, ITS

• Web Application Developer (provided by ITS – until ITS restructure unfolds)

Associates

The eResearch Associates are employed in key UWS research institutes or schools and work closely with the eResearch team and provide technical expertise to assist researchers.

• Gerard Devine – HIE Data Manager –

• Jason Ensor – Research Development Officer (Digital Humanities)

• Nathan Mckinlay – ICT Professional Officer – IIE

• James Wright – Technical Officer in Bioelectronics & Neuroscience – BENS

Funding

The eResearch team has no formal budget separately from the office of the DVCR&D. Recommendation: consolidate remaining project funds into an eResearch projects account to support projects in the eResearch portfolio.

• Money that’s in the MS23 financial account ~ $22,244.24

• RDR budget remaining ~ 100K (subject to confirmation from ITS)

Policy Working Group

The policy working group is chaired by Kerrin Patterson, Associate Director Performance and Quality (Acting), Office of Engagement, Strategy & Quality. The group has identified two priorities:

• Establishing an Open Access (OA) policy for both research publications and research data.

• Creating a Research Data Management (RDM) policy.

The working group has made substantial progress on the Open Access (OA) policy, and has asked the Manager, eResearch to review the policy framework at UWS, particularly the Research Code before starting on the Research Data Management (RDM) policy. Recent changes to Australian Research Council (ARC) funding rules for Discovery grants, mean this is now a pressing issue for both the OA and RDM policies at UWS:

A11.5.2 Researchers and institutions have an obligation to care for and maintain

research data in accordance with the Australian Code for the Responsible

Conduct of Research (2007). The ARC considers data management

planning an important part of the responsible conduct of research and

strongly encourages the depositing of data arising from a Project in an

appropriate publicly accessible subject and/or institutional repository.

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Open Access Policy	Draft presented to DVCR	Policy adopted	Support DVCR&D in progressing policy thru the UWS process Revise materials to support the policy, new Powerpoint slide show possible statements from Scott Holmes	See communications working group plan
Research Data Management policy	Review of UWS policy, particularly the Research Code	Review of UWS policy complete	Policy WG finish gap-analysis/comparison of UWS policies Policy WG recommend whether we need an RDM policy and what its scope should be	Policy working group produce draft of RDM policy and/or updates to related policies

Communications and Organisational Development

The Communications working group is chaired by Susan Robbins, Research Services Coordinator for the UWS library. The following table sets out the broad goals for this area.

During 2014 the eResearch will be working with Intersect to establish an organisational development approach to eResearch under the “Research Bazaar” banner.

** #resbaz = Research Bazaar

eResearch Projects

The following table lists projects which report to the eResearch Projects Working Group committee. This table shows the broad project stage for each project over the year, a separate schedule/dashboard which will be presented to the eResearch Projects committee will show detailed targets for each.

Infrastructure Working Group

Infrastructure planning is in discussion with ITS Strategy. A technology roadmap is being produced with the ITS Roadmap Builder Tool. This will be published as a separate plan.

Intersect Engagement

The relationship between Intersect and UWS is covered by a member engagement plan (in development for 2014).