Trust and Identity case studies
We are partnering with national research infrastructures to build and implement the next generation of trust and identity solutions
National Imaging Facility
AAF has partnered with the National Imaging Facility (NIF) exploring improved access and collaboration for complex multi-site human imaging projects and medical trials using sensitive data.
NIF is Australia’s advanced imaging network, and provides open access to flagship imaging equipment, tools, data and analysis. NIF aims to maintain Australia’s world leading role in advanced imaging technology and make its capabilities accessible to all Australian medical researchers to solve challenges across research and industry. They enable research in areas such as mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), epilepsy and melanoma. NIF are critical to research translation, clinical trials and the commercialisation of medical products.
As one of AAF’s Trust and Identity Pathfinder Incubators, we have been working with NIF on enhancing their access — providing NIF partners, institutional researchers and external users with the opportunity for improved access and collaboration when undertaking complex, multi-site human imaging projects such as national clinical trials that use sensitive data.
Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre
AAF has partnered with the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre exploring options to provide seamless and secure access to their supercomputing service using federated identities.
The Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre is one of two Tier-1 high-performance computing facilities in Australia. Its primary function is to accelerate scientific research for the benefit of the nation. Pawsey’s service and expertise in supercomputing, data, cloud services and visualisation enables research across a variety of fields including astronomy, life sciences, medicine, energy, resources and artificial intelligence.
Pawsey’s supercomputing systems play a critical role, for a wide range of research disciplines and features as an important part of many researchers’ workflows. This Incubator will raise the security profile of Pawsey and provide a single user account across their ecosystem. The Pawsey Incubator is a foundational building block in trust and identity for national research infrastructure and plays a critical role in the implementation of trust and identity across the sector.
Microscopy Australia
AAF has partnered with Microscopy Australia exploring impact tracking through persistent identifiers (PIDs).
Microscopy Australia are a consortium of university-based microscopy facilities that more than 3,500 researchers across Australia use each year. They aim to empower Australian science and innovation by making advanced microscopes accessible to all researchers.
One of the greatest challenges in research is to connect and report on distributed services and this incubator explores how richer reporting, impact tracking and usage data can be provided through ORCID iDs and PIDs across national research infrastructure.
ACCESS-NRI
AAF has partnered with ACCESS-NRI exploring options to provide consistent user tracking and reporting.
The Australian Earth-System Simulator (ACCESS-NRI) is a national research Infrastructure that supports the research and development of the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) modelling system framework. ACCESS-NRI provides this service in collaboration with National Computational Infrastructure (NCI).
The AAF is currently in the discovery stage of an incubator with ACCESS-NRI, with the objective to develop a solution that can improve the current usage tracking approaches across all ACCESS-NRI resources.
Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)
Thematic transformation to meet Australia’s long-term research needs
AAF has partnered with the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) to develop a trust and identity reference architecture for new and existing ARDC platforms. This incubator project will enable thematic transformation across ARDC’s research data commons through the application of both the technology and policy components of the Trust and Identity Framework for research collaborations.
ARDC is Australia’s leading research data facility, accelerating Australian research and innovation by driving excellence in the creation, analysis and retention of high-quality data assets.
AAF are collaborating with ARDC through the Trust and Identity Pathfinder program, funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). This incubator will test the entirety of the Framework and support the uplift of ARDC’s Nectar Research Cloud. The incubator will ensure the trust and identity policies and technologies are reusable across ARDC’s Thematic Research Data Commons (RDC), to support researchers across distributed infrastructures and research communities.
NCI Australia
Enhancing authentication for trusted access to high performance compute for researchers, government and industry.
AAF has partnered with the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) to explore improved trust and identity for researchers, government and industry using high performance compute, data and virtual environments.
NCI provide expert services and hardware, including high performance compute (HPC), storage and data, driving high-impact research and groundbreaking outcomes for Australia.
AAF are collaborating with NCI through the Trust and Identity Pathfinder program, funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). The strategic goal is to enable higher Identity and Authentication Assurance Levels (IAL), helping to increase use of higher performance compute HPC services by researchers across multiple research fields, including medical, defence, frontier technologies and modern manufacturing.
Discover other projects & case studies
Discover research infrastructure already connected. The AAF has a long history of enabling access to the research sector, read more about our success stories.
Threatened Species Initiative
Federated identity and access management to protect Australia’s threatened species.
Australia has one of the highest species extinctions and declines on Earth. To support ongoing conservation and recovery efforts, it is critical that genomic data on threatened species is made freely available to researchers.
To support this crucial need, the AAF partnered with Australian BioCommons to pilot federated identity and access management (IAM) for the Threatened Species Initiative (TSI). This is one of many projects that the two organisations have worked on together, that address policy and technology solutions to simplify access for life science researchers.
Human Genomes Platform Project
Advancing human genomic research through federated identity and access management
The Australian Access Federation (AAF) partnered with Australian BioCommons on their Human Genomes Platform Project (HGPP), which investigated and prototyped a suite of services aimed at bolstering Australia’s capacity to share human omics research data securely and responsibly.
AURIN - Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network
AURIN is connected to AAF’s Federation and is one of the most highly accessed services across the national research ecosystem.
AURIN has empowered researchers over the last decade with access to data and analytical tools. The research they enable has improved liveability in Australia, informed climate change policy, and revealed the economic implications of COVID on the Australian population. As a long-time member of the Federation, AURIN is easily accessible by others, enabling critical decision making for Australia’s future growth by policy makers, researchers and practitioners.
Murchison Widefield Array (MWA)
The AAF connected the MWA to eduGAIN and not only enhanced and accelerated innovation in astrophysics, it enabled borderless research. A global initiative and a world leading data advantage, Australia’s role in eduGAIN is becoming solidified as more national research and infrastructure is shared globally.
APPN - Australian Plant Phenomics Network
APPN’s connection to the Federation enables national and international researchers with open access to their state-of-the-art phenotyping.
The APPN is a national research infrastructure that accelerates the development of new and improved crops and sustainable agricultural practices. Their facilities provide automated image analysis and plant phenomics that address complex challenges for food production and environmental science. Federation scientists from around the globe can access their data and explore innovations for drought resistant crops.
How we can help you
We are partnering with national research infrastructures to enable access by researchers, industry and government
National research infrastructure
AAF is partnering with national research infrastructure to develop a system-wide approach to access.
The AAF currently enables access to a variety of national research infrastructure including AURIN, APPN and CSIRO.
We are currently partnering with the wider national research infrastructure community, to explore the application of a standard set of technology and policies, to enable system-wide access to services, data and compute. Our current incubator partners include the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, National Imaging Facility, ACCESS-NRI, Microscopy Australia, Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and NCI Australia.
If you would like to discuss trusted access for your research infrastructure contact us, and one of our project managers will be in contact.
Higher education
Do you have a national research infrastructure hosted within your university?
Many national research infrastructure are distributed throughout Australia’s universities, and we can work with your IT team and them, to enable access to those services and facilities.
We are currently exploring this complex arrangement with our incubator partners the National Imaging Facility, which has distributed imaging technology locate across multiple universities and locations.
Researchers
AAF are exploring with the national research infrastructure community, how we can enable access to the valuable services, technologies, data and computational power.
Industry
A consistent and easy way in which to access research infrastructure will enable collaboration between industry and researchers, supporting research development and commercialisation.