VISION

On November 27 the Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Julie Bishop MP, launched the initial round of the NCRIS program.

Capability 5.13, “Structure and Evolution of the Australian Continent”, also known as “AuScope”, has been awarded $42.8 million in NCRIS funding, of which $15.8 million is committed to develop an enhanced national geospatial reference system. The balance is for a range of geoscience initiatives as set out in the AuScope Investment Plan. In addition over $70 million in co-investment has been committed by the participants in AuScope.

A pdf document containing details on the NCRIS funding allocation for Capability 5.13 can be viewed by clicking on: NCRIS Funding 5.13.

Other information on the NCRIS announcement and media release, as well as  details on funding allocation for the other Capabilities to be funded can be obtained on line at:
http://www.ncris.dest.gov.au/

A copy of the final Investment Plan that was submitted to NCRIS on the 3^rd of November 2006 for Capability 5.13 can be accessed by clicking on: AuScope Investment Plan.
(Note that copy of Attachment B -Constitution of AuScope Limited- and Attachment H –Letters of Support- can be accessed from the ‘Working Documents’ page of this website).

Background to AuScope

On 28 February 2006, the current Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Julie Bishop MP, announced the release of the NCRIS Strategic Roadmap (available at http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/policies_issues_reviews/key_issues/ncris) developed to inform decisions on where Australia should make strategically important infrastructure investments to further develop its research capability.

NCRIS forms part of the Government’s innovation package, Backing Australia’s Ability: Building Our Future through Science and Innovation and it will build on the improvements to infrastructure achieved under the Strategic Infrastructure Initiative (SII) and Major National Research Facilities (MNRF) programme.

The Roadmap identifies and describes 16 priority areas of research capability that are recommended for support through NCRIS. The research capabilities were selected on the basis that they will provide the most strategic impact in terms of delivering national benefit, producing world-class excellence in both discovery and application driven research, and/or enhancing the overall capacity of the research and innovation system by providing enabling research platforms and promoting accessibility and collaboration.

The AuScope Project

Solid Earth Geoscience is largely dealt with under the capability area 5.13 “Structure and Evolution of the Australian Continent”, which has been included in the first priority grouping for consideration for funding this year.

Capability areas’ proposals, which NCRIS refers to as Investment Plans, will need to address comprehensively each of the investment criteria set out in the NCRIS Investment Framework (also available at http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/policies_issues_reviews/key_issues/ncris)

The Government intends that a single national, collaborative proposal/bid that meets national infrastructure requirements and includes a detailed business case will be developed for each of the capability areas.

Early this year a Steering Committee was established to lead the bid for the capability area 5.13, which was named “AuScope”. The members of the Steering Committee are:

Prof Peter Cawood - pcawood@tsrc.uwa.edu.au;
Prof Andy Gleadow - gleadow@unimelb.edu.au;
Dr Paul Heithersay - Heithersay.Paul@saugov.sa.gov.au;
Prof Brian Kennett - ANSIR@anu.edu.au (alternate Dr Bruce Goleby - bruce.goleby@ga.gov.au);
Prof Kurt Lambeck - kurt.lambeck@anu.edu.au;
Dr Tom Loutit - tloutit@frogtech.com.au;
Mr Scott McTaggart - admin@access.edu.au;
A/Prof Dietmar Müller - dietmarmuller@mac.com;
Prof Sue O’Reilly - soreilly@els.mq.edu.au; and
Dr Mike Etheridge - mike.etheridge@tectonex.com.au

Dr Mike Etheridge had been identified by the community as the Facilitator for the capability and he chairs the Steering Committee; AuScope secretariat is based at Level 9, 1 York Street, Sydney NSW 2000.

The AuScope Steering Committee established seven themes to cover the main science and infrastructure delivery components. Each theme has a Working Group (except Geospatial which has established two WG’s). The theme / Working Groups titles and their chairs are:

• Access and Interoperability - Rob Woodcock - robert.woodcock@csiro.au;
• Earth Composition and Evolution – Trevor Ireland - trevor.ireland@anu.edu.au
• Earth Imaging and Structure - Graham Heinson - graham.heinson@adelaide.edu.au;
• Earth Modeling and Process - Louis Moresi - louis.moresi@sci.monash.edu;
• National Geospatial Reference System (two working groups: Science and End User) – Science WG - Paul Tregoning - paul.tregoning@anu.edu.au; - End User WG - Gary Johnston - gary.johnston@ga.gov.au;
• Integration, End-Users and Long-term Vision - Mike Sandiford – mikes@unimelb.edu.au;
• The National Virtual Core Library - Jon Huntington - jon.huntington@csiro.au

Four key elements of the capability were specified by NCRIS, and they are very likely to form the core of the Capability 5.13 investment plan:

-Geophysical imaging – (both seismic and non-seismic) providing detailed information on physical structure and processes;
-Geochemical analysis – providing information on the chemical composition and age of geological materials (both solid and liquid);
-Geophysical modelling – providing advanced earth simulation from micro to global scales and facilitating the interpretation of data; and
-The National Geospatial Reference System – providing a nationwide upgrade of the reference frame definition by an order of magnitude or more in the next decade principally to support geodetic, seismic risk, neotectonic and geodynamic research, but also to provide the basis for a wide range of spatial science applications.