Thinking about the above for a meeting with 19 other people in a few weeks at an organization I have never been to, with people I don’t think I know..to discuss NRI. For humanities and social sciences.

There was criticism from the Australian Academy of Humanities President on the Australian Government 7 May 2018 response (to the 2016 report), entitled FACILITIES FOR THE FUTURE UNDERPINNING AUSTRALIA’S RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

Funding will enable greater integration and modern accessibility of datasets available through the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) and the Atlas of Living Australia.
Investments will ensure the preservation of the National Collections maintained by CSIRO through the construction of a new and purpose-built building to consolidate the housing of existing national insect, wildlife and plant collections to ensure their long term preservation. A scoping study will be undertaken to identify the technology platform and capabilities needed to establish HASS and Indigenous research platforms.

CSIRO stands for Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. So not obviously Humanities or Social Sciences (HASS). Yet many of their projects and infrastructure have implications for communities. Perhaps an opportunity wasted, or perhaps still waiting to be explored.

So where does this leave my planning for the workshop? It seems to me funding and recognition typically boils down to machines, centres, or investment/competition/start up plans. With Digital Humanities in Australia, one can argue there is no clear equivalent say to the European EU DH infrastructures/meta groups; nor an equivalent to the US NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities).

• HASS research could better sell potental impacts and benefits. The UK quantify research impact/engagement; do other countries?
• There is no single NRI to achieve this, one meta infrastructure would squeeze out the smaller disciplines/projects.
• We are currently limited by lack of international funding/collaboration; cost of travel; siloization of research into non OA journals;  lack of Media/Public interest (arguable, I guess); and being excluded from the National Science and Research Priorities (compare it to Europe or NZ). And no, when you apply for a national grant, you ARE supposed to propose something addressing these highly applied, production-oriented, applied outcomes and priorities. Priorities, one might argue, that should already be driving businesses, not the entire academic body of  universities.  HASS needs to get on the board here.
• Consider the discussion outcomes, and the implications for the Draft Terms of Reference for the HASS scoping study.
• NB “The 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap is officially underway with the release of the Terms of Reference.”