In July 2021, New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) and AgResearch announced a
new partnership aiming to design and deliver a future-focused eResearch Platform.
Through the partnership, AgResearch aims to meet its needs to innovate in advanced
computing and data methods for its research while participating in the growth and
development of national research infrastructure.
AgResearch will leverage the full power of NeSI’s new multi-tenant cloud-native high
performance computing platform.
This all-in-one environment brings together expertise,
computing and data, research networks, instruments at the institutional edge, and scientific
pipelines and workflows to harness the power of the platform as a super-facility for research. The collaboration model behind this platform shares and fosters expertise across both
organisations. It forms mutual support networks for platform operations, user support, and in
establishing critical mass through capability building and community-building.
The partnership addresses a challenge commonly faced by institutions, where their research
ambitions grow beyond what's possible to support through local investment.
The collaboration model will be an exemplar for the research sector. In this session we will
outline why we have taken this approach, what we are trying to achieve and provide some
insight into the progress and learnings through the early phase of the partnership.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nauman Maqbool is the Knowledge & eResearch Leader at AgResearch and is leading the effort to
deploy the eResearch Platform and all associated services for AgResearch. He has a
passion for eResearch, data and knowledge management and has held various roles in data
science and research management.
Georgina Rae is the Science Engagement Manager at NeSI where she ensures that NeSI is
building strong relationships with the research sector. Prior to NeSI she has worked in
molecular biology and intellectual property. She is passionate about enabling research and is
interested in the fundamental shifts required to level up scientific research.