Valuable environmental data can easily disappear from view once a research project ends. A new data framework developed over two years by the Sustainable Communities and Waste (SCaW) Hub will help keep the Hub’s research discoverable, connected and usable well into the future.
“Good environmental data can remain useful long after the project that produced it has finished, but only if people can find it and understand what it contains,” said SCaW Hub Data Wrangler and project manager Dr Sanjith Udayakumar.
“Our aim was to connect each dataset to the project, researchers, organisations and publications that explain why it matters.”
Hub research is produced across five different institutions, working with community, industry and government groups and partner institutions across Australia.
Finding it can be like searching multiple library catalogues without knowing which one holds the material they need.
Rather than creating another repository, the portal contributes to a central portal that points users to research held by various institutions. This includes UNSWorks, the CSIRO Data Access Portal, Monash Bridges, the Curtin Research Data Collection and the University of Tasmania Research Repository.
RAiDs: a lasting identity for each research project
The team mapped the current data landscape across the SCaW Hub, identifying how research outputs are stored, shared, and discovered across its partner institutions.
Next, they introduced Research Activity Identifiers (RAiDs) across Hub projects. A RAiD gives an entire research activity a permanent digital identity, linking its researchers, organisations, datasets and publications, even when those records are stored in different locations.
The project also developed standard metadata protocols and promoted the use of persistent identifiers in the metadata for each output.
Persistent identifiers are permanent digital references linking research components. Examples include DOIs for publications and datasets, ORCIDs for researchers, and RORs for research organisations.
The team met extensively with researchers, project leaders and institutional repository managers to develop practical guides that help researchers publish their datasets and other different outputs.
Outcomes
Factsheets and reports from Hub research have since been published through CSIRO's repository with permanent DOIs. Several other Hub data products now include persistent identifiers, and further potential datasets are planned for publication under these guidelines.
One dataset from UNSW, incorporating a RAiD, was also trialled for inclusion in Research Data Australia.
Sometimes research cannot be made fully open because it includes culturally sensitive, confidential, or restricted information.
For these cases, the metadata remains openly available, so others can discover that the data exists, understand its relevance and request access where appropriate.
Extending the value of research
SCaW Hub Leader and report co-author, Scientia Professor Veena Sahajwalla said the work extends the value of research funded through the Hub.
“Research has its greatest impact when people can use it, build on it and apply it to real decisions,” Professor Sahajwalla said.
“This project will help make sure the knowledge created across the Hub remains visible and connected, so governments, industry and communities can find evidence to address waste, pollution and other environmental challenges.”
The two-year Domain Data Portals NESP Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub project was delivered from May 2024 to June 2026 in collaboration with the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) as part of the Planet Research Data Commons.
The initiative is supported by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW).
It makes environmental and climate data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (the ‘FAIR’ principles) and aligned with CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics).
View the ARDC project record
The Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub Domain Data Portal was a co-investment partnership with the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) through the Planet Research Data Commons (DOI: 10.3565/sgb9-h180). The ARDC is enabled by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
