Dr Cameron Fong1, Dr Darya Vanichkina2, Dr Rose Smail2, Dr Eden Zhang2, Dr Angus Fisk2
1The University of Sydney – RIEA, Australia, 2The University of Sydney – SIH, Australia
Biography:
Cameron engages with researchers, faculty, professional staff, and students to promote, improve, develop, and implement RDM best practices. This varies from developing resources, providing support and training for the research community, working with individual researchers to develop tailored solutions, to collaborating with peers at different institutions.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4558-3700
Darya Vanichkina PhD SFHEA is the Data Science & AI Group Lead at the Sydney Informatics Hub (SIH), a Core Research Facility of the University of Sydney dedicated to enabling excellence in data and compute-intensive research. Darya leads a team that delivers consultancy services and training to boost research outcomes and funding, accelerate projects, and foster partnerships with industry and government. In 2025, her team is championing the adoption of AI for research across the University’s faculties and affiliates.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0406-164X
Rose Smail – https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7292-024X
Eden Zhang – https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0294-3734
Angus Fisk – https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2777-4439
Abstract:
The rapid implementation of GenAI tools across universities has been spearheaded by undergraduate teaching, with support and resources for researchers lagging behind. This creates a dangerous situation where researchers see, hear and feel limitations around the use of GenAI from their institutions while simultaneously bombarded by questionable practices in academic journals, social media and the newsl. Add in the confusing messaging for those who broach both research and education – and we have the precursors for risky GenAI use.
There is a need to develop and promote exemplar ways of using GenAI for common research tasks to accelerate adoption and nurture innovation while reducing risk.
At the University of Sydney, the Sydney Informatics Hub initiated a cross-unit collaboration to run a co-creation session to develop such exemplar use cases. In this presentation, we’ll discuss the process we followed and challenges we ran in to when building this collaboration, recruiting researchers to contribute, and negotiating with stakeholders across the university to ensure developed materials were accepted by the diverse cohort of concerned parties.
The University of Sydney has established a dedicated hub for the responsible research use of GenAI, providing researchers a curated resource pool that champions innovation and best practice. eResearch conference attendees from other institutions interested in developing similar resources in partnership with their researchers can benefit from our implementation experience and lessons learned, facilitating a more streamlined development process at their own institutions.