Submission – 2026 National Research Infrastructure (NRI) Roadmap Exposure Draft

Australia’s NRI system underpins the nation’s ability to conduct high-quality research, collaborate internationally, foster innovation, and respond to complex national challenges.

The Roadmap presents a broad, aspirational view for the direction of Australia’s national research infrastructure over the next five years. However, it does not recognise the critical 2028–29 funding cliff facing the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

The Academy calls for an urgent, formal commitment from the Australian Government to continue to fund NCRIS at no less than current levels beyond 2028–29. This program creates more than 1,000 jobs and provides more than 100,000 Australian researchers and 30,000 international users access to more than $4 billion in tools, data and expertise.

The Academy welcomes the findings in the NRI Roadmap exposure draft and supports its proposals for coordinated national high-performance computing and data infrastructure, supporting a skilled workforce and Australia’s research collections. The Academy further recommends that the phased approach to collections sets clear timeframes for each phase and considers identifying pilot collections of national significance that could be brought to higher levels of maturity.

The Academy looks forward to seeing clear, actionable, timely recommendations in the final Roadmap.

The Academy recommends the final NRI Roadmap:

• include critical landmark and international research infrastructure in its long-term strategic planning of Australia’s research infrastructure and international partnerships
• develop a long-term integrated approach to international research infrastructure
• adopt a coordinated formal partnership model between state and territory governments to leverage regional strengths and connect Australia’s research infrastructure
• commission a 10-year national high performance and computing (HPCD) strategy, inclusive of the necessary workforce and incorporating GPU, CPU and data storage and access needs and requirements
• recognise the role of fundamental research to translation across disciplines. Translation will not exist without the research pipeline
• create administrative and governance frameworks across funding schemes to set clear responsibilities, decision points, lifecycle costs and measures of success for each near-term coordination priority
• develop measurement and reporting requirements of NRI facilities to ensure they are meeting their obligations.
• set clear timeframes for the phased approach of collections, safeguarding these national assets while coordination and governance arrangements are created
• establish a national coordination capability for national research collections, providing national oversight to identify approaches, opportunities and coordination across collections, datasets, platforms and enabling services.