The Australian eResearch Infrastructure Council

The Australian eResearch Infrastructure Council was established by the former DEST following the recommmendation of the NCRIS committee in accepting the NCRIS Investment Plan for Platforms for Collaboration (available from the documents section of this site).

The council held its inaugural meeting on 23 July 2007 and determined amongst other things to operate as openly as possible.

Due to the increased investment in eResearch Infrastructure announced in the May 2009 Commonwealth Budget, the role and membership of AeRIC is being restructured to accommodate an enlarged activity and to align its activities as a sub-committee of the new National Research Infrastructure Council (NRIC).

The establishment of NRIC was announced by Minister Carr on the 20th of May 2009.

Professor Tom Cochrane, nominated in the Minister's announcement as a member of NRIC, will continue to Chair the revised AeRIC.

Documents related to AeRIC meetings are available as follows:

• Meeting #1 23 July 2007
• Meeting #2, 31 August 2007
• Meeting #3, 10 October 2007
• Meeting #4, 20 November 2007
• Meeting #5, 22 February 2008
• Meeting #6,15 April 2008
• Meeting #7, 29 May 2008
• Meeting #8, 5 August 2008
• Meeting #9, 30 September 2008
• Meeting #10, 17 November 2008
• Meeting #11, 23 April 2009

To assist with discussion around PfC activities, the following documents may be of interest.

• A handout outlining the overall purpose of AeRIC (download)

• The further advice provided to NCRIS as part of the PfC report (download)

• A working document on the purpose of the Australian National Data Service which was reviewed and broadly endorsed by stakeholders at a meeting in May 2007 (download)

Further details of the May 2007 ANDS workshop, including capability statements provided by the participants following the workshop, are available here.

An AeRIC web presence will be developed shortly and additional information provided.

In the meantime, further documents will be posted here as they are finalised. These are expected to include

• Responsibilities and Mode of Operation for NeAT
• A further definition of ANDS suitable for eliciting "expressions of interest"

A recent set of slides about the development and the investment plan and the arrangements that are being put in place is available for download here (3.9Mb ppt).