Threatened Species Initiative

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.

Enabling access for researchers to collaborate

AAF provides proven and secure, trust and identity solutions, along with the expertise to streamline the research process for research organisations, universities, and independent research facilities across the globe.

John Scullen, Head of Projects and Managed Services at AAF says, “Recently, the AAF have focused on connecting the Bioplatforms Australia Data Portal and Galaxy Australia to an identity management platform. This platform allows research communities to manage access rights for their members.

“The TSI was the first pilot group, acting as a model with reusable tools and services for other research communities.”

The TSI was formed to support decision-making for biodiversity conservation, and to help better understand and protect Australia’s threatened species. Bioplatforms Australia supports this national program to assist conservation efforts in managing species recovery by using cutting-edge genomics technology and advanced computational biology.

Computational resources to support genomics research in conservation are spread across Australia, making it hard for researchers to easily access and analyse data. Researchers have needed to log into several different data portals using different credentials for each to complete their complex analysis of genomic data.

To address this challenge, a community portal was developed, with connections between multiple data portals. The community portal allows researchers to use single sign-on, and access different resources and services more easily. The portal also enables centralised management of membership and access rights to data and services, ultimately making genomic research more seamless and secure.

The AAF has built a functional authentication and authorisation proof of concept to enable single sign-on and seamless access to multiple data portals.

“A central hub will enable researchers to self-register for access via a login of their choice and enables researchers to apply for community membership. Community managers will then be able to invite new researchers and approve or deny membership requests, improving data access control across the community hub.” John further says.

The work aims to support conservation efforts and provide critical infrastructure in the form of data and analytical pipelines to support biodiversity conservation. Its objective is to enable research communities to collaborate more easily, outlining a framework that other research communities could adapt into the future.

TSI is supported by Bioplatforms Australia through the Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), in partnership with the University of Sydney, Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation & Attractions, Amazon Web Services, NSW Saving Our Species, Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the Zoo and Aquarium Association.

Pictured: Forty-spotted Pardalote – Pardalotus quadragintus one of Australia’s rarest birds and by far the rarest pardalote, being confined to the south-east corner of Tasmania.

Find out more

• To learn more about AAF’s involvement in the TSI and view use cases, please visit our YouTube channel >>
• To learn more about the TSI, visit their website here >>
• TSI is a Bioplatforms Australia 2024 Eureka Prize Finalist, find out more >>

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.