Monash University > News and Events > Monash Memo

e-research collaborations strengthened

23 December 2005

Seventy of Australia's leading e-researchers gathered at Monash's Clayton campus earlier this month to discuss their research projects and investigate collaborative opportunities.

e-researchers: Professor David Abramson; Ms Anne-Marie Lansdown and Ms Margot Bell from the Department of Education, Science and Training; and incoming e-research director Professor Ah Chung Tsoi.

The workshop was organised by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Department of Education, Science and Training to bring together researchers in the developing field of e-research.

The workshop participants have received e-research funding through either the ARC's e-research support projects or DEST's Managed Environment for Research Repository Infrastructure initiative.

E-research uses high-performance computers (or clusters of these computers), huge databases and massive or multiple scientific instruments, to link research teams and solve previously intractable problems in areas as diverse as aeroplane engine design, climate modelling and drug design through to performing complex queries over multiple social sciences databases.

Professor Ah Chung Tsoi, executive director of Mathematics, Information and Communication Science at the ARC, coordinated the event. Professot Tsoi will join Monash next month as director of the university's $3 million e-research centre.

The workshop's Monash host, Professor David Abramson from the Clayton School of Information Technology, said the event was a great opportunity for e-researchers to become acquainted with each other's research projects and maintain collaborations.