Speaker
Description
Measuring and communicating impact to funders and users is key to the continuity of research enablers. Yet measuring the less visible contributions of research infrastructures to research outcomes remains a formidable challenge.
Australia’s national research infrastructures (NRIs), funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) program, play a pivotal role in research and innovation in every discipline including climate science, astronomy, health, data and more. Without them, researchers do not have access to the tools, data, facilities, technical expertise and research translation to support their endeavours.
In Australia, we are investing in the supporting infrastructure needed to bridge the gaps between researchers, infrastructure and communicating impact.
Research Infrastructure Connected (RIC) helps researchers find the tools they need and the experts who can shorten the time it takes to get to a working solution. RIC achieves this through fostering collaboration, storytelling, and public engagement.
This session, led by Anita Gibson from RIC, explores how Australian research infrastructures are working together to explore new tactics to meaningfully connect with diverse audiences and communicate impact.
Anita will provide an overview of NCRIS and RIC’s mission, highlighting outreach strategies to government, industry, researchers and research infrastructure professionals.
The session will then spotlight two NCRIS capabilities using creative approaches to engagement:
• AURIN will showcase its use of ArcGIS StoryMaps to make complex urban data accessible and relatable.
• Microscopy Australia will share its ‘Stories and Structures – New Connections’ exhibition, which aims to engage indigenous Australian communities in STEM by exploring the rich visual parallels between the representations seen in many Indigenous artworks and the microscopic structures hidden in the natural world.
Together, these examples demonstrate how research infrastructure communicators are shifting the narrative to make the impact of research infrastructure visible, valued, and understood.
