“That’s a nice quantumoscope you’ve got here – be a shame if anything happened it.”
There’s a new science resource in the marketplace, but this has one has services to sell. It’s Research Infrastructure Australia, which offers, “over $4bn worth of tools, data and expertise to address your research challenges.”
Surprised you have not heard of an agency with that sort of kit? Don’t be – it’s a platform for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) – an enormous national resource nobody outside science knows about.
Which could be a problem. Back in 2015, then Education Minister Christopher Pyne suggested NCRIS could be sacrificed for savings – shortly followed by a Senate Education Committee inquiry to ascertain what member institutions did and why it mattered. Nothing came of Mr Pyne’s proposal, but it seems NCRIS people did not enjoy the experience and so, after apparently considerable consideration, a consultant reported two years that “it is time to shine a light on NCRIS.”
“We can think of few approaches to providing additional stimulus to the Australian economy that are more cost effective than increasing investment,” was the call to arms.
Which is where we are now, with the Research Infrastructure Australia site promoting members, announcing events and providing case studies.
It’s an improvement on Department of Education efforts for the agency. The resources page lists a poster (as in a promotional flyer) for what NCRIS can do in advanced manufacturing, or could do when it was created in 2021.
The Australian National Audit Office lists DoE’s administration of NCRIS for potential audit.
