Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) is a national digital research infrastructure, funded by the Australian Government and hosted by the University of Melbourne. We connect researchers, government, and industry with hard-to-access data and advanced analytical tools to support evidence-based decisions for Australia’s cities and regions.
We help researchers and decision-makers tackle major national challenges including climate change, energy transition, housing affordability, and demographic change. Recent initiatives include supporting the Housing Analytics Lab and investing in AusEnHealth, Australia’s first national environmental health decision support platform.
Hear more on AURIN initiatives from our Director Prof. Pascal Perez about how AURIN enables high-impact urban research and supports better policy outcomes across Australia.
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Hi, I’m Pascal Perez. I’m the director of AURIN. What is AURIN? AURIN stands for Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network. We are a national research infrastructure facility funded by the federal government and hosted by the University of Melbourne. As stated in our strategic plan, 23-28, AURIN delivers critical data and analytical tools to researchers and governments across Australia, supporting high-impact research and evidence-based policies for Australian cities and regions.
In other words, we provide hard-to-get data and support hard-to-do digital implementation to address nationally significant challenges, such as impact of climate change, energy transition, demographic transformation on Australian cities, regional centres, infrastructure systems, and local communities. AURIN doesn’t have a mandate to develop and deliver directly to research outputs.
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We are enabling and enhancing research. Using a simple analogy, I’d say that in a successful restaurant called the Australian Urban Research Inn, AURIN stands firmly in the kitchen, sourcing the best ingredients, maintaining cooking equipment, and helping with the recipes. Urban researchers conceive the sophisticated meals and serve them to the clients in the restaurant room, making sure everybody’s happy with the food, the atmosphere, and the price.
So why is AURIN important? Well, Australian Cities host 90% of the population, generate 80% of our GDP and contribute to nearly 60% of our annual carbon emissions. I can’t see anything more important than ensuring sustainability and resilience of our cities in the face of climate change, energy transitions, demographic transformation.
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It is crucial for AURIN to continue to support high-impact urban research. Since inception, AURIN has delivered already over 5,000 data sets and analytical tools to more than 24,000 users, including researchers, government planners, and industry analysts. Over the last two years, AURIN has modified its offering to focus on high value commercial and/or sensitive data sets, hardly accessible to researchers due to financial, legal, or technological constraints.
As a result, AURIN is able to support significant initiatives such as the Housing Analytics Lab, led by UNSW and launched by Premier Crispin earlier this year. HAL brings together researchers, industry and government experts to address the housing availability and affordability crisis in this country.
AURIN has also invested in the AusEn Health Initiative- Australia’s first national digital environmental health decision support platform- coordinated by QUT and supported by the Medical Research Future Fund.
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This open-source platform is designed to enable policy makers, health managers, researchers identify vulnerable populations, predict future disease burden, and plan for changing climate in a coordinated and timely manner.
So how does AURIN operate? AURIN uses a hub and spoke model to interact with the urban research community. AURIN HQ, hosted by the University of Melbourne, is the hub that includes key administrative, business, and engineering capabilities. Currently, five AURIN nodes are connected to AURIN HQ through multi-annual agreements that identify priority areas of research and resources allocated by both parties.
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In terms of capabilities, AURIN HQ develops and maintains centralised resources such as sensitive data sets, digital assets, and expertise, collectively described as the enabling platform. Additional capabilities provided by the AURIN nodes, as well as our industry and government partners, make up our innovation ecosystem. AURIN’s unique value proposition lies in its capacity to negotiate strategic partnership with commercial data and technology providers that allow for researchers to access these assets and augment the value through a product focus approach coordinated by AURIN HQ.
For example, AURIN HQ has recently signed agreements with relevant third parties to access and share under specific conditions location data collected by telecommunication operators.
If you want to find out more about AURIN, please find our website, AURIN.org.au.
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