AuScope receives $45M for new Earth, coastal and Antarctic monitoring, drilling, data and modelling infrastructures
Zooming in on Australia. Image: USGS edited by AuScope
We are delighted to be able to confirm that on Thursday, 19th October 2023, the Minister for Education, the Hon Jason Clare MP, and the Minister for Innovation and Science, the Hon Ed Husic MP, announced the outcomes of the 2023 NCRIS Research Infrastructure Investment Plan (RIIP) funding round and that AuScope was awarded a grant of $45,013,425 (ex-GST) over four years.
This is new capital funding and is in addition to the operation funding of $45,060,540 (ex-GST) announced Hon Jason Clare MP in November last year for the period July 2023-June 2028.
Discover our plans for the five proposed activities based on recommendations proposed in our community designed 5-year investment plan.
This is an outstanding outcome for AuScope and the Australian Earth and Geospatial science communities it supports. The RIIP process was very competitive, with over $1.3 billion of funding requested through submissions across the RI space, with only $655 million of funding available. While this level of funding for AuScope is substantial, our proposed activities were only partially funded, and a number were not funded at this time.
We have received funding to support the following activities:
$8M for Continental Scale Geophysical Monitoring for Australia and Antarctica
This project will accelerate the completion of the AusLAMP national magnetotellurics program, support the expansion of the GRIT geophysics for Antarctica programs, and support other national-scale geophysical instrument deployments that will be confirmed over the next 12 months.
$14M for EarthBank: An Australian Geochemistry Network activity enabling the analysis, preservation and discoverability of nationally significant & environmental collections
EarthBank will further expand the AGN network, providing additional support for data science roles and data management activities within partner institutions and laboratories. This is not limited to existing AuScope members, and there is growing interest across the museum sector and other government organisations.
This funding will also support co-investment in a number of new analytical instruments and/or upgrades to existing systems across the country.
>$9M for the National Coastal Observing Facility
This new activity forms part of the cross-NCRIS collaborative CoastRI program, (IMOS, TERN, ALA, AccessNRI, Aurin, NCI and ARDC) will focus on filling the RI gap relating to coastal monitoring, modelling and impact prediction around Australia’s immense and contested coastal regions.
It will provide support for the national expansion of the community-supported, drone-based coastal monitoring project run from Deakin University, deployment of fixed lidar monitoring at key localities around the coastline, and provision of access to long flight-time and high payload VTOL drones and novel sensor arrays at the University of Queensland.
$10M for Subsurface Sampling Australia New Zealand Drilling Consortium (ANZIC)
This represents the long-anticipated move of the incredibly successful ANZIC program office, based at ANU, from LIEF funding into the more secure NCRIS environment. ANZIC manages Australian and New Zealand access to the IODP and ICDP programs, and this funding will support the Australian component of that activity. We welcome the dynamic ANZIC community into the AuScope family.
>$1M for Coastal Modelling Infrastructure (GIA modelling)
Another CoastRI-connected activity this funding will support the development of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) models, which will inform various sea-level and ice-sheet models and will, in time, be incorporated into the AccessNRI modelling platform. This activity will be based at ANU.
Supporting the NCRIS Concierge
AuScope is excited to make an in-kind contribution to the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF) led NCRIS Concierge project that aims to, over a year-long period, scope an engagement service to help bridge a known gap between NCRIS (tools, technology and talent) and diverse users (in industry, government, community and academia) to supercharge Australia’s response to it’s pressing challenges. In this project, ANFF is undertaking consultations across NCRIS and user communities, building a website (prototype) that responds to the identified needs of those communities, and creating a business plan (that will be submitted to the Australian Government via the Research Infrastructure Investment Plan 2024 funding call in late 2024).
Looking to the future
Unfortunately, several of our proposals more closely aligned with mineral exploration and drilling were unsuccessful. This is despite the clear alignment with critical minerals, groundwater and energy challenges outlined in the NRI Roadmap and the National Reconstruction Fund priorities. Please be assured that these proposed activities continue to align with the AuScope strategy and DLT concept, and we intend to strengthen the unsuccessful proposals and resubmit these into future RIIP rounds in 2024 and 2026.
The 2024 RIIP round will focus on additional investment in the Environmental Step-Change, translation (tNRI), digital infrastructure (dNRI) and collections.
Once again, we thank everyone who worked with us to create the AuScope strategy, the DLT concept and our 5-year investment plan, as well as those who helped develop the specific activity proposals and made submissions through the RIIP and Roadmapping process.
We look forward to collaborating further as we implement these new projects and also as we continue to develop the earth and geospatial science research infrastructure supporting Australian research, translation and impact.
This story was updated on the 19th of December 2023 from the original published on the 19th of October 2023.
AUTHOR
Dr Tim Rawling, CEO AuScope
MORE INFORMATION
AuScope Team
AuScope Overview
AuScope Programs
CoastRI: Research infrastructure connecting land and sea
ANZIC: Australian & New Zealand IODP Consortium
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