Nectar virtual laboratories (VLs), which provide digital interfaces, tools and data to online research communities, are generating a return on investment of up to 138 times their cost, according to a new report by Victoria University academics.
Estimating the value and impact of Nectar Virtual Laboratories, written by the Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies for the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources project (Nectar), studied three Nectar-supported VLs across different disciplines.
The three VLs covered by the study are:
- Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory (BCCVL)
- Characterisation Virtual Laboratory (CVL)
- Genomics Virtual Laboratory (GVL)
Staff working on the GVL are part of RCC and work out of UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB).
The GVL provides free online tools and resources for genomic research, mainly for analysis of high-throughput sequencing data, via a single easy-to-use interface that does not require researchers to have programming skills.
GVL operates on the QRIScloud infrastructure, including virtual machines and data storage.
Five methods of value measurement were used in the report, including the impact the VLs have on research and how much users would be willing to pay for the service if it did not already exist.
The return on investment varies depending on the metric and the associated method of calculation, however the report found that return on investment is at least double the investment for every measure of each of the VLs studied, indicating the services have a significant economic and user impact. By one measure the value of the VL was over 100 times the cost of investment.
Read Nectar’s full story about the report on Nectar’s website.
