LSP for Social Infrastructure Project – update

The objective of the APO-led ARC LIEF grant Linked Semantic Platforms (LSP) for Social Infrastructure Project is to develop the next generation of decision-support tools for interdisciplinary research on critical public policy issues through linked open data, knowledge graphs and collaborations across existing research infrastructure projects.

The project expects to achieve significant benefits for evidence-based policy research by creating open linked databases and innovative analytical tools for the diverse data and documents available. This will support researchers in universities, industry, government, and NGOs to find new solutions to critical public policy issues in social care, public health, work and wellbeing, transport, built environments and digital inclusion.

Research team

The team of researchers and positions that have been filled are as follows:

Highlights from the KM2018 conference

In the first week of July, Amanda Lawrence and I attended the Knowledge Mobilisation Conference (KM2018) in Sydney, hosted by the Sax Institute. It was a packed event, with an audience of about 60 per cent researchers, 20 per cent policy makers, and the rest somewhere in between.

Amanda presenting at KM2018 — Amanda presenting at 2018 Knowledge Mobilisation conference in Sydney

bridge

The discussions and workshops were all about ways to bridge the gap between researchers and policy makers. The focus was on health, but the learnings are applicable across all public policy.

My key points from the conference:

Finding, building and sustaining relationships

Researchers are challenged by the situation where people in government adviser roles change frequently, making it difficult to engage, and sustain engagement.

And from the other side, it is hard to ‘find an expert’.

While at the same time it is recognised that relationship building, and ‘deliberative dialogues’, help with knowledge translation.

Speaking the right language, as well as listening the right way Continue reading “Highlights from the KM2018 conference”

Workshopping the interface between APO and ADA

Early in May, Dr Steve McEachern and Janet McDougall from Australian National University (ANU) joined Dr Ahsan Morshed from Swinburne University’s Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, and the APO team to workshop the sharing of information between APO and the Australian Data Archive (ADA).

Lots of exciting opportunities were identified, along with the usual list of challenging issues to overcome to make these ideas become reality.

Watch this space as we share our journey and discoveries through the Linked Semantic Platforms project.