BioCommons features in the National Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy

The Australian Government Department of Education has published its 2030 vision for ensuring that Australian researchers maintain access to cutting-edge research infrastructure. The document features Australian BioCommons, describing how three BioCommons activities are addressing national priorities. 

The National Digital Research Infrastructure (NDRI) Strategy identified six priority outcomes to achieve the NDRI vision. By 2030, Australia’s system should be:

1. Underpinned by training frameworks for researchers and the NRI workforce.

2. Responsive to technological and societal shifts.

3. Consistent in its standards for data collection, curation, and access.

4. Integrated across levels of computing and data infrastructure.

5. Cybersecure, particularly for national-scale data and computing.

6. Maximised by openly available research software tools. 

The Strategy highlights how Australian BioCommons, in our role as the bioinformatics capability of Bioplatforms Australia, are taking up the challenge of training researchers and the NDRI workforce. It notes the high level of engagement in our training program and links this to the recruitment of NDRI users. Looking forward, the NDRI strategy calls for ‘the NDRI system [to be] underpinned by training frameworks for researchers and the NRI workforce,’ citing the importance of existing activities such as DreSA, another activity that BioCommons has proudly supported.

The Australian AlphaFold Service was highlighted as a notable example for the second priority outcome that ‘the NDRI system should be responsive to technological and societal shifts.’ The service represents a national infrastructure level response to the technological shift caused by the rise of Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold technology. AlphaFold is already accelerating research fields that rely on protein structures, such as drug discovery, vaccine design or resilient crop development, with predicted structures available in just minutes compared with existing slow, laborious experimental techniques. The Australian AlphaFold Service takes care of the set-up and provisioning of underlying infrastructure so researchers can focus on rapidly generating their protein 3D structures through AlphaFold. The service is delivered by BioCommons in partnership with the Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation and the University of Melbourne.

A collaboration between Australian BioCommons and the Australian Access Federation was highlighted in the Strategy as a key example of ensuring that Australia’s NDRI remains cybersecure. The collaboration delivered a candidate solutions report to guide approaches to federated identity and access management in both the Human Genomes Platform Project, and for future research infrastructures to apply. Work in this space is ongoing, with access management solutions being deployed across the BioCommons Human Genome Informatics program.

An independent working group has been formed and will now take community input to develop investment plans, which are expected to be released in 2025.

Read the full National Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy on the Department of Education website.

Australian BioCommons is enabled by Bioplatforms Australia via National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) funding.