Plans and reports

TERN NCRIS Final Report (~5MB)

Our final report for NCRIS represents a culmination of over four years of commitment and vision towards building an ecosystem science research network for Australia.

Due to the Commonwealth investment in the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), for the  first time in the history of Australian ecosystem science:

• Infrastructure exists that enables ecosystem scientists to collaborate and share data within and between disciplines and all levels of government, efficiently and effectively;
• Coordinated capacity exists for consistent collection, storage, publication and sharing of ecosystem data, especially long-term and continental-scale datasets; and
• Dedicated synthesis projects are using these resources to actively pursue answers to complex environmental science and management questions that were intractable prior to TERN.

In the approximately four and a half years the NCRIS project has been running, TERN has made significant inroads into the transformation of Australian ecosystem science from a situation in which effort was fragmented, inefficient and short-term, to one in which effort is national, networked and delivering for Australia’s future.

The TERN NCRIS Journey

This journey began with the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) investment of  $20.375 million Commonwealth funds by Department Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, which  in turn attracted $4.1 Million from the Queensland Government and over $27 million in-kind contributions  from the University of Queensland, the University of Adelaide, Macquarie University and CSIRO. This  vision was further leveraged with subsequent Commonwealth investments through EIF Super Science Initiative (EIF), Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (CRIS) and NCRIS 2013.

TERN has been built with the direct involvement of 17 university partners, CSIRO and more than 25 other research organisations, Australian, state and territory government agencies, non-government organisations, and others. Successfully leveraging on a decade of existing government investment and enabling everyone to pull in the same direction, TERN has delivered connected capabilities spanning the ecosystem science spectrum.
 

        TERN Key statistics

NCRIS II (EIF SuperScience) Final Report (~2.5 MB)

TERN’s final NCRIS II (EIF SuperScience) report marks the end of the official “build” phase of TERN. The document provides an overview of all that has been achieved by the project since its inception in 2009. 

This booklet is a showcase of what TERN has achieved through fresh approaches, a collaborative mindset, and infrastructure such as dedicated observation sites and equipment, standardised measurement methodologies, and extremely complex computational data and information services.
For the first time in the history of Australianecosystem science:

• the country possesses infrastructure that enables ecosystem scientists to collaborate and share data within and among scientific disciplines and all levels of government;
• data are shared efficiently and effectively, and are available free;
• there is coordinated, consistent collection, storage, publication and sharing of ecosystem data, especially of long-term and continent-scale datasets; and
• dedicated synthesis projects have used these resources from diverse perspectives to look at problems in fresh ways, which has resulted in novel understanding of ecosystems and environmental functions, and answers to complex science and management problems that were previously intractable. 

These are not the only gains. In building TERN, partners and collaborators have created a much more robust ecosystem science community, and the establishment of new communities of interest that are proving to be fruitful sources of understanding built on their combined knowledge. Formal collaboration and cooperation is becoming standard.

These benefits help TERN to deliver greater returns on public investment in Australian environmental science and management. And they give policy
makers and environmental managers a better footing on which to make decisions, including on threat abatement and adaptation to climatic changes.