Dr Elisa Bayraktarov1, Dr Rob Clemens1
1EcoCommons Australia, Griffith University, Nathan, Australia
EcoCommons Australia values collaborations that are aligned with our vision and mission to empower people with data, scientific workflows, training, and a flexible platform infrastructure to protect and restore the planet. Here we present an overview of the collaborations which make EcoCommons possible and demonstrate some of our most recent use cases. We then present the different types of our collaborations. First, collaborations which leverage our existing infrastructure are demonstrated through our work with Biosecurity Commons and other ARDC-supported platforms. Second, we showcase how collaborations with organisations like the CSIRO Atlas of Living Australia, TERN, the AusTraits Project at UNSW, and the Eratos Group bring better, more high-resolution data into EcoCommons with the goal of a broad exposure to the research community. Third, collaborations with environmental non-governmental organisations like The Nature Conservancy and World Wide Fund for Nature who are delivering conservation solutions and planning tools such as the Marxan Spatial Prioritisation platform generate training resources that are co-developed or shared. Finally, collaborations such as those with the Integrated Marine Observing System/Australian Ocean Data Network and the Open EcoAcoustics project at the Queensland University of Technology connect EcoCommons’ functionality to other existing platforms. At EcoCommons, we recognise that through collaboration we have a greater chance of accelerating breakthrough research and decisions that will lead to positive changes for the environment. Indeed, a ‘commons’ that shares access to data and workflows in the ecological domain will only succeed through collaboration and engagement with platform partners, stakeholders, lecturers, and researchers.
Biography:
Dr Elisa Bayraktarov is an ecologist with a background in environmental monitoring who mobilises and interrogates data to craft solutions for problems related to threatened species and marine coastal ecosystems. She leads research with real-world impact through close engagement with businesses, non-governmental organisations and policymakers. In her current job as EcoCommons’ Program Manager at Griffith University, Elisa works with a team of agile software developers (DevOps), scientists, science communicators, trainers and analysts to build EcoCommons as the platform of choice for environmental and ecological modelling. Before joining the EcoCommons program in May 2020, Elisa drove the development of Australia’s Threatened Species Index at the University of Queensland in close partnership with Birdlife Australia and supported by the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program, the Commonwealth Department of the Agriculture, Water and the Environment and Energy, all State and Territory governments, and over 30 other conservation and research organisations.