Research Link Australia: Information Model and Metadata

The Research Link Australia (RLA) product is designed to enhance research-industry collaboration by increasing the visibility of R&D capabilities and opportunities in both sectors and make it easy for research organisations and industry find collaborators.

During the RLA project consultation and co-design phases, three important types of information are identified for the support to identify potential collaborators:

• Research Capability information from both research and business/industry sectors.
  Research capabilities can be represented by researcher profile through their identifier, research output (publication, research data, IP and patent), and received funding (e.g. ARC/NHMRC grants, other Gov. and Philanthropy funding), information through OrgID about a stakeholder that are of some research capabilities, Research facilities and services owned by an institution, business R&D activity.

• Collaboration capability/culture fit: collaborators from either side know about culture, language and priority and how to work together.  
  Information about collaboration capability can be evidenced by Successful Partnerships that could be inferred by past collaboration history, for example, through ARC linkage grants or CRC grants. However, there is no indicator for many researchers or SMEs (small to medium enterprises) who haven’t yet had such collaboration.

• Capacity: Capacity indicates if potential collaborators are available for a collaboration even if they are capable.
  While some of this capacity information could be obtained from an organisation’s HR systems, there is also a need to collect voluntary declarations by the research collaborators themselves.
  

What data does RLA collect?

Currently, RLA focuses on providing information on research capability and research collaboration capability. The RLA data model below shows how the two types of capabilities are interlinked. In particular: 

• Individuals’ and organisations’ research capabilities are demonstrated through their research input and output, e.g.  publications, datasets, instruments, and  funded projects.

• Individuals and organisations’ collaboration capabilities  are demonstrated through their collaborative work from past funded projects that have both research and industry participation (e.g. ARC Linkage Projects).

Each entity  - such as researcher and expert, organisation, research input/output, and funded activity is represented by a data type or a data object. The RLA data model, also known as the RLA graph, links each entity or data type to another in the model.