Report by RCC Director Prof. David Abramson
After a year of planning, eResearch Australasia 2017 finally happened a few weeks ago [16–20 October]! As far as I could judge, it was a great success (but I guess I am biased, as general chair).
The conference attracted nearly 450 delegates, with more than 150 talks in various forms. There was a huge diversity of platforms from oral presentations, birds of a feather sessions (BoFs), lightning talks, solution showcases and workshops.
A highlight for me were the excellent keynote addresses, many of them from friends and colleagues from Australia and abroad. The range of these talks was quite noteworthy, and spanned the whole range of eResearch from the issues in research ethics through to hardcore science and supercomputing.
The conference started off with an exciting introduction by Queensland Science Minister Leeanne Enoch who spoke of her government’s commitment to eResearch and research in general.
The conference also hosted the 33rd PRAGMA workshop, and brought delegates from around the Asia Pacific region, including a number of close collaborators from the University of California, San Diego. A joint session between PRAGMA and the Science Gateways workshops allowed us to explore opportunities to collaborate more widely around Australian infrastructure and science projects.
Finally, on a personal note, it was terrific to host two performances of my play, Purely Academic, which both provided conference entertainment for delegates, and attracted nearly 300 people on the second night from outside the conference. This was the culmination of many months of hard work by the cast and creatives, and was very well received.
See Prof. David Abramson’s personal website for more information about ‘Purely Academic.
