Australian Research Data Growth Rate – the Macro View 2022
Ai Lin Soo1, Rhys Francis2, Luc Betbeder-Matibet1 1University Of New South Wales 2Research Data Culture Conversation
Abstract
A small group of research intensive universities have been working over the last six years to better understand the characteristics of a more effective research data culture. Many discussions alluded to the challenges posed by an ever growing data volume, a measure of which was unknown for those institutions and the research sector.
In 2021 the Research Data Culture Conversation (RDCC) engaged over sixty-five institutions including CSIRO, Medical Research Institutes, Universities and National Research Infrastructure facilities to answer the simple but fundamental question:
What is the volume of unique data managed by Australian research sector institutions for the purpose of future access?
As a result, a first ever Macro View estimate for December 2021 was developed. The results were 213 Petabytes across all institutions and 295 Petabytes including national research facilities. As set out in research intensity measures related to researcher numbers were used to extrapolate to all universities and all medical research institutes.
Research growth rates have been postulated to be extremely high. Work is underway to develop the equivalent Macro View estimate for December 2022. This poster will report on the volume obtained and for the first time make available an estimate of the research data growth rate in the Australian research sector. An initial estimate based on the RDCC members is that research data is growing at 30% per annum.
Biography
Ai-Lin Soo is a Project Officer at the UNSW ResTech Services Team as well as the Operations Manager for the Ai for Law Enforcement and Community Safety (AiLECS) Lab at Monash University. She applies her project management skills to support a diverse range of activities in areas such as research data management and operational governance. Ai-Lin is also heavily involved in the Research Data Culture Conversation (www.researchdataculture.org) as the RDCC coordinator and product manager of the Macro View.