eResearch Conference 2024 Reflections

Dear Alex, here is a special Conference edition of the Australasian eResearch Newsletter.

Australasian eResearch Newsletter Special Conference edition - November 2024

Message from AeRO:

That’s a wrap on eResAU2024! A wonderful week of engaging speakers, presentations, posters and lightning talks, as well as the opportunity to network with colleagues. We’re delighted to report record attendance levels. A selection of photos taken at the Conference can be seen at https://conference.eresearch.edu.au/eresearch-photo-gallery/.

Special thanks to our valued sponsors and exhibitors who make eRes possible – some have celebrated 10+ years as sponsors!

We encourage you to complete the feedback survey (via the link in the email sent on 1-Nov-24 https://cdesign.eventsair.com/2024eresearch/delegate-survey/Survey/Register) to help make eRes2025 even better.

A reminder that organisations that sent 3+ attendees qualify for fee-free AeRO membership. See https://aero.edu.au/join for more information.

Thanks again to everyone who helped in front and behind the scenes to deliver eResAU2024 – we look forward to seeing you at the next AeRO event!

Alex Reid, Newsletter Editor.

Luc Betbeder-Matibet and Natasha Simons write:

eResearch this year saw 608 of us in Melbourne making 2024 one of our largest conferences ever. We again want to thank our Program Committee, especially Frankie, Leslie and David for all the last minute work that needs to happen in the crazy weeks before the conference. The NCRIS social drinks on Monday night were a great way to end the day’s workshops and get to meet old and new faces before kicking off the conference on Tuesday.

We thank our keynote speakers. We loved Liz and Joe starting our conference with the big national picture and next steps for our digital research infrastructures. Sarah took big and made it even bigger with the scale of the SKA and then Kerstin took us to the moon and back to rescue valuable data… and that was just the first day.

On Day 2 Matt showed us how identifiers are helping glue our systems together improving traceability from outputs back to data creation. The team from Florey, Heath and Anton, and Simon from AWS then showed us the infrastructure behind the Australian Epilepsy Project and how that was created. We ended Day 2 with our Poster Reception which celebrated one of our largest ever poster submissions. Thanks Jacky for taking over that session!

Day 3 saw us taking a deep dive into deep learning and deepmind with Kate. We all took Bio101 and finished the game before heading to Europe with Franciska who reminded us what the e in eResearch and e-Infrastructure is all about and what is currently happening with the European Open Science Cloud. We ended the conference with a panel session on Enduring Infrastructures and open questions from the floor. Our thanks to Rosie, Ute, Nick, Sach and Satish for leading our closing conversations and making the session so interactive. We thank all our keynote speakers, all our presenters, all our session chairs and our exhibitors and sponsors who helped put on the conference.

Join us next year in Brisbane. Luc and Natahsa.

Sponsors

Those of us that have been involved in organising conferences know that we cannot run an event like this without this kind of support.

Platinum: AWS with Intel.
Gold: Google Cloud, and Xenon with Nvidia.
Silver: Weka, Fujitsu with NetApp and Nvidia, ERATOS and IBM.
Bronze: DDN, Overton.
Our Coffee and Drinks: HP, Vast, OneTeam.
Our Network: AARNet.
Name Badge & Lanyard: CDC.
Welcome Reception: NTT Data with Dell.
Destination Sponsor: Melbourne Convention Bureau.

We want to shout out that several of our sponsors have been with our conference for over 5 years.
DDN (15), AARNet (12), Xenon (9), AWS (8) and HPE (6).

Conference Statistics

Total registrations: 607
States and Countries represented:

VIC: 245
NSW: 118
QLD: 69
ACT: 57
NZ: 31
WA: 27
SA: 27
TAS: 10
USA: 7
Japan: 4
United Kingdom: 3
Singapore: 2
Netherlands: 2
Canada: 1
South Africa: 1
NT: 1
South Korea: 1
Taiwan: 1

BoFs Are Valuable!

This year eResearch again hosted many BoF (Birds of a Feather) sessions that continue our practice of allocating time for our communities to get together. For many, these are the most important sessions at the Conference, as they provide the opportunity to wrestle with various issues across the whole gamut of eResearch development, deployment and review. This year we held 27 BoFs covering Skills, Security, Containers, eResearch Staff, Carpentries, Women in HPC, FAIR, PIDs, Vocabularies, Research Data Management, AI/ML Impact, Sustaining e-Infrastructures (at least!!).

Future AeRO Events.

Luc Betbeder-Matibet writes:

We will be asking the eResearch community and AeRO members if there is appetite and energy to run an online only 1 day or 1.5 day conference with one or two keynotes and a curated selection of the 2024 eResearch presentations including opportunity for a set of BOF summaries as lightning talks. Please let Luc know what you think. Luc@unsw.edu.au

As set out in the last edition of this Newsletter, a new AeRO Exec was elected at the Conference, and is already calling for ideas for Forums, other activities, etc.

Reflection on the RSE-AUNZ BoF

Rowland Mosbergen writers:

This is the reflection on the RSE-AUNZ BoF

We had about 35 people attend the RSE-AUNZ BoF at eResearch, with over 20 people who attended weren't members of RSE-AUNZ.

We initiated an introduction session that kicked off further discussions that lasted through the break.

As part of our live polling, the biggest challenges for career/job were funding, career advancement, and lack of stability.

Many people wanted to connect with mentors, funders, and potential employers, and were keen for the community to make connections, provide professional recognition, and to have local chapters.

Keynote on Australian Epilepsy Project

Anastasios Papaioannou writes:

I believe the Australian Epilepsy Project (AEP) keynote was the highlight of the conference, showcasing exceptional research translation and impact. This talk demonstrated how the AEP’s innovative use of AI/ML technology and infrastructure transforms epilepsy care. Through a strong collaborative approach, bringing together expertise in neurology, data science, and cloud technology, the AEP has created a platform with remarkable potential to improve patient outcomes. This project exemplifies how interdisciplinary collaboration can drive meaningful advances in healthcare, benefiting millions of Australians facing epilepsy.

Intersect Australia

Esther Kane, Marketing specialist for Intersect Australia, writes:

Intersect is celebrating a successful and productive eResearch Australasia conference. Across the conference, Intersect was involved in 3 Birds of a Feather sessions contributing to discussions and sharing insights on key topics such as digital skills training, cloud computing infrastructure and AI skills. We also delivered 4 presentations showcasing our digital skills training program, our research data management solutions and our Advanced Analytics and AI (3AI) support and training. Intersect’s CEO, Satish Nair, also participated in a panel on Enduring Infrastructure to close the conference.

Link:
https://intersect.org.au/intersect-australia-at-eresearch-australasia-2024

Women in HPC

Kiowa Scott-Hurley writes:

The Women in HPC (WHPC+) Australasian Chapter enjoyed practical discussions about diversity, equity and inclusion at eResearch Australasia 2024! On Tuesday, we ran a Birds of a Feather session with an awesome panel of women from the eResearch community who discussed their career challenges and wins. Later in the week attendees collaborated over breakfast to identify where WHPC+ can have the most impact in the future. We also saw increased community engagement and connection in the WHPC+ Slack with commentary on presentations and coffee reviews.

If you’re interested in being part of our amazing community, join us on Slack here: https://join.slack.com/t/whpcausnz/shared_invite/zt-1j2fwabpf-v_vcWL2mEdstwXSUGbcYVA

Research Vocabularies Ecosystem

Lesley Wyborn writes:

Following on from the BoF session on at the Conference on Research Vocabularies Ecosystem in Australia: Continuing the Conversation (see https://conference.eresearch.edu.au/the-research-vocabularies-ecosystem-in-australia-continuing-the-conversation/), we encourage everyone to contribute your insights to the Vocabulary Roadmap for Australia. Your unique perspective is valuable in helping us enhance the roadmap. Please take a moment to review the draft and share your thoughts. (https://bit.ly/vocab-roadmap).

Data and Debris BoF

Eve Ansell, Qcif HASS Data Scientist, writes:

Watching the Mentimeter bounce around, I realised in the Data and Debris session there were vanishingly few researchers in the room. Having recently stepped from PhD to RI world, just for fun I put my Researcher Hat on to participate.

To my amusement, I answered almost everything in direct opposition to the rest of the room (despite agreeing with an RI Hat). As researchers, there’s so many hoops to jump through to obtain data, so that being asked to delete anything provokes an extraordinarily visceral and emotional response, a frenetic internal voice shrieking “noooooo”.

Dear RI professionals: sorry.

Has eResearch Conference Run Its Course?

Alex Reid writes:

Having served on the Program Committee for many years, and having attended all but 1 (I think) of the eResearch-Australasia Conferences, the thing that strikes me most forcefully about eRes2024 is that there is still plenty to discuss, explain, describe, debate (as evidenced by the enthusiastic and high quality submissions made). eResearch is like an onion – you peel off one layer thinking you’re getting to the heart of the matter, only to find another layer. This doesn’t mean we’re not getting anywhere: we’ve made huge advances in our understanding and application of eResearch. Just look at the above article on BoFs. We have made and will continue to make great advances in eResearch, as long as we continue to come together from time to time, to compare notes, to seek fresh ideas, to test one another, to communicate! Keep it up!!

Contributions

The regular form of this newsletter is based on contributions from members of the eResearch community, and draws on news articles and newsletters published across the sector. The Newsletter is published around the 16th of each month. Please send all contributions (max. 100 words + link + image) or pointers to any other relevant articles or newsletters to editor@aero.edu.au.
Newsletter archives are available at http://aero.edu.au/newsletters/.
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Thanks, Alex Reid, AeRO Newsletter Editor.

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