The Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) invites you to participate in a short survey about your
interaction with the ARDC and use of our national research infrastructure and services. The survey will take
approximately 5 minutes and is anonymous. It’s open to anyone who uses our digital research infrastructure
services including Reasearch Link Australia.
We will use the information you provide to improve the national research infrastructure and services we
deliver and to report on user satisfaction to the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research
Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) program.
Please take a few minutes to provide your input. The survey closes COB Friday 29 May 2026.
Complete the 5 min survey now by clicking on the link below.
The Great Exhibitions and their Lost Indigenous Objects . This project will rediscover the Australian Indigenous objects sent overseas to the Great Exhibitions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such objects acted as powerful forms of cultural, political and economic display, and a form of imperial and colonial projection. It will excavate the hidden histories of Indigenous people involved in these events and the many objects lost to Australia. Through collaborative work at communi ....The Great Exhibitions and their Lost Indigenous Objects . This project will rediscover the Australian Indigenous objects sent overseas to the Great Exhibitions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such objects acted as powerful forms of cultural, political and economic display, and a form of imperial and colonial projection. It will excavate the hidden histories of Indigenous people involved in these events and the many objects lost to Australia. Through collaborative work at community dialogues, the project will repatriate knowledge and remake connections between objects, museums, and Indigenous people. In doing so, it will bring contemporary Indigenous perspectives to global attention, generate new exhibition possibilities and influence international museum practice.Read moreRead less
Healing Land Healing People: Novel Nyungar Perspectives . This project aims to investigate means of biodiversity conservation and human resilience in a global hotspot by advancing collaborations between Aboriginal environmental and cultural knowledges and Western science and humanities. The project will generate new strategies to slow decline of biodiversity in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region, and help build Aboriginal resilience by exploring innovative techniques to restore narrative ....Healing Land Healing People: Novel Nyungar Perspectives . This project aims to investigate means of biodiversity conservation and human resilience in a global hotspot by advancing collaborations between Aboriginal environmental and cultural knowledges and Western science and humanities. The project will generate new strategies to slow decline of biodiversity in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region, and help build Aboriginal resilience by exploring innovative techniques to restore narratives of local life styles to Dryandra Woodland history. Expected outcomes include enhanced sustainability of environment and culture and new theories and assessment models. This should provide significant benefits for Aboriginal well-being, national reconciliation and for coping with global climate change.
Read moreRead less
The unwired horizon: clouded and mobile delivery platforms for early collections of Yolngu cultural heritage in Arnhem Land, Australia. Led by the Yolngu Elder and researcher Joseph Gumbula, this project will develop a clouded database engine and networked applications for streaming digitised heritage resources in ways appropriate for Indigenous peoples, particularly those in remote communities. Trial content will be selected from records of Gumbula's own heritage dating from 1924.
Shielding our futures: storytelling with ancestral and living knowledge. This project aims to overcome persistent narratives of loss and despair with regards to Aboriginal cultures within urban and metropolitan communities today. Storytelling is an essential means of knowledge transmission that ensures the survival of diverse Indigenous knowledge, however colonial storytelling has removed the Stories from Country, their peoples, and the important lessons within them. The project will reciprocall ....Shielding our futures: storytelling with ancestral and living knowledge. This project aims to overcome persistent narratives of loss and despair with regards to Aboriginal cultures within urban and metropolitan communities today. Storytelling is an essential means of knowledge transmission that ensures the survival of diverse Indigenous knowledge, however colonial storytelling has removed the Stories from Country, their peoples, and the important lessons within them. The project will reciprocally engage with the oral histories of D’harawal Elders that engage with Garuwanga Waduguda (Ancestral Laws) and Narinya Wadugua (Living Laws) to emancipate representations of D’harawal’s knowledge from dominant colonial-storytelling narratives that largely speak of assimilation, cultural loss and extinction. The project will assist in revitalisation and respect of Aboriginal identities and knowledge within urban communities.Read moreRead less
Towers of Terabytes: utilising Indigenous digital knowledge resources . This project aims to advance understanding of how Indigenous cultural knowledge databases can be integrated with ecological information management systems to enhance the ability of Indigenous rangers to care for country. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the challenges and solutions of data linkage between cultural heritage and natural resource management platforms. Expected outcomes include an integrated I ....Towers of Terabytes: utilising Indigenous digital knowledge resources . This project aims to advance understanding of how Indigenous cultural knowledge databases can be integrated with ecological information management systems to enhance the ability of Indigenous rangers to care for country. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the challenges and solutions of data linkage between cultural heritage and natural resource management platforms. Expected outcomes include an integrated Information Management System for the Wadeye ranger group and museum, and the formation of a working model for ranger groups nationally. Benefits include delivery of data-linkage solutions and a significant contribution to research and practice in the use of information technologies by and for Indigenous peoples. Read moreRead less
Aboriginalia: Collecting Histories of Aboriginal Representation. Since Federation, non-Indigenous people have produced material objects for the home depicting Aboriginal bodies, artefacts and designs and marketing these as the truly Australian look. Since the 1960s, Aboriginal people started to collect these material objects, defined as 'Aboriginalia'. This interdisciplinary project aims to examine Aboriginal collectors' representations of 'Aboriginalia'. This is the first study to examine Abori ....Aboriginalia: Collecting Histories of Aboriginal Representation. Since Federation, non-Indigenous people have produced material objects for the home depicting Aboriginal bodies, artefacts and designs and marketing these as the truly Australian look. Since the 1960s, Aboriginal people started to collect these material objects, defined as 'Aboriginalia'. This interdisciplinary project aims to examine Aboriginal collectors' representations of 'Aboriginalia'. This is the first study to examine Aboriginal collectors' representations of non-Indigenous historical depictions of Aboriginality within Australian material culture. The research and associated publications will explore the Aboriginal social life of material objects in historical perspective.Read moreRead less
Re-imagining Humanities through Indigenous Creative Arts. This project will develop an Indigenous Creative Arts Framework to reimagine and transform the Humanities across Australian Universities. It will engage Indigenous creative arts academics, scholars, curators, practitioners and communities to conceptualise new innovations in teaching, research, community engagement and ethics. This project will centre critical Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing; contribute new Indigenous research ....Re-imagining Humanities through Indigenous Creative Arts. This project will develop an Indigenous Creative Arts Framework to reimagine and transform the Humanities across Australian Universities. It will engage Indigenous creative arts academics, scholars, curators, practitioners and communities to conceptualise new innovations in teaching, research, community engagement and ethics. This project will centre critical Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing; contribute new Indigenous research methodologies and restorative practices; and reframe knowledge through creative arts praxis. Such innovative and dynamic advances in research will recognise and grow Indigenous capacity building across the Humanities, as vital to cultural wellbeing for all Australians.
Read moreRead less
From illustration to evidence in native title: The potential of photographs. This project aims to test the evidentiary value of large photographic collections of Aboriginal people in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales. The project will seek to identify the photographed subjects and where and how they were photographed. Drawing on photographic theory, anthropology and Indigenous studies, the project should throw light on how photographs can reveal information about historical conti ....From illustration to evidence in native title: The potential of photographs. This project aims to test the evidentiary value of large photographic collections of Aboriginal people in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales. The project will seek to identify the photographed subjects and where and how they were photographed. Drawing on photographic theory, anthropology and Indigenous studies, the project should throw light on how photographs can reveal information about historical continuities and changes, regional mobility patterns and connections to country over time. The expected benefit of the project is to assist in demonstrating Indigenous connections with land and place in native title claims.Read moreRead less
Indigenous Storytelling and the Living Archive of Aboriginal Knowledge . No archiving system adequately responds to the interconnected and relational knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples'. This project aims to explore the potential of Indigenous Storytelling, which supports the interconnection of everything, as a way of intervening in the linear structure of institutional archives. A non-linear, interactive archiving system will be developed in collaboration with Aboriginal people. Such a sys ....Indigenous Storytelling and the Living Archive of Aboriginal Knowledge . No archiving system adequately responds to the interconnected and relational knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples'. This project aims to explore the potential of Indigenous Storytelling, which supports the interconnection of everything, as a way of intervening in the linear structure of institutional archives. A non-linear, interactive archiving system will be developed in collaboration with Aboriginal people. Such a system aims to better reflect Aboriginal perspectives about culture and histories in relation to collections held in galleries, libraries, archives and museums. An evaluation of museums globally will advance understandings of the opportunities for greater Indigenous co-management of their dispersed collections. Read moreRead less
Children born of war: Australia and the War in the Pacific 1941 - 1944. Many thousands of mixed-race children were born in Australia due to a range of circumstances when more than one million allied troops were stationed here during the Second World War. These children are the embodied challenge to all of the nations involved, to provide the opportunity for a family background for identity and wellbeing. In seeking to understand the circumstances that brought them into the world, some have been ....Children born of war: Australia and the War in the Pacific 1941 - 1944. Many thousands of mixed-race children were born in Australia due to a range of circumstances when more than one million allied troops were stationed here during the Second World War. These children are the embodied challenge to all of the nations involved, to provide the opportunity for a family background for identity and wellbeing. In seeking to understand the circumstances that brought them into the world, some have been able to resume relationships with family in the United States of America. This project will contribute to addressing the unanswered questions of these children by exploring the social contexts and interplays of gender and race in the extremities of wartime.Read moreRead less