Harris L1, Nulley-valdes C1
1Australian Research Council, , Australia
Biography:
Lee Harris is the Director of Research Insights and Evaluation at the Australian Research Council, where he leads work across research evaluation, data strategy, and policy development. He is responsible for shaping ARC approaches to research assessment, open access, and data-driven insights, including work on research evaluation frameworks, metadata, and the use of persistent identifiers to improve transparency and understanding of research outcomes.
He has over a decade of experience in government research policy including contributing to the establishment of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. He is currently driving the development of the ARC’s Research Insights Capability.
Clare Nulley-Valdes is an Assistant Director in the Research Evaluation and Policy Branch at the Australian Research Council, where she leads and contributes to policy work on persistent identifiers, research metadata, and open access. She led the development of the ARC Open Access Policy and played a key role in the development of the ARC’s Persistent Identifiers (PID) Action Plan. Her work focuses on strengthening research evaluation through the effective use of identifiers and metadata.
Abstract:
Research metadata is essential to evaluate research outcomes, demonstrate impact, and maximise the value of public investment in research. Current practices in Australian mean that the metadata available about research practice is often limited, may not be available at all, or may be missing key information. This is particularly true for diverse research outputs and activities.
This presentation outlines how the Australian Research Council (ARC), in alignment with Australia’s National PID Strategy, is addressing these challenges by embedding persistent identifiers (PIDs) across four key initiatives.
1. The ARC’s PID Action Plan, which sets out priority actions to support the adoption and integration of PIDs across the ARC’s National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP).
2. The 2026 update to the ARC’s Open Access Policy which includes strengthened requirements for identifiers such as Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for research outputs and Research Organization Registry (ROR) IDs for institutional attribution, improving consistency and traceability of metadata.
3. Exploring how PIDs can support improvements in research reporting and funding compliance processes without increasing burden.
4. The role of PIDs within the ARC’s emerging Research Insights Capability (RIC), including how they can be used to enable data linkage and enhance validation.
Collectively, these initiatives will deliver mutual benefits across the sector by improving data quality and strengthening the evidence base for research evaluation and funding decisions.
