Governance & Resources

Organisation of the ADA

The ADA staff comprises 9 staff members at time of submission, with a total of 7.55 FTE:

• Director
• Technical Manager
• Archive Manager
• Researcher
• Software developer
• Senior data access officer
• Data access officer (part time)
• Data archivist (x2)

ADA staff are organised into three groups within the archive – Data Access, Data Archiving, and Technical.

The ADA director reports to the Director of POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research [17] at ANU. The ADA sits within POLIS. As part of an established ANU Centre, ADA is governed by the ANU Policy on Centres and Institutes [41].

In addition to ADA staff, additional IT functions are provided by external partners:

• The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) [7] is Australia’s preeminent computing facility, delivering on the critical national need for high-performance data, storage, and computing services. NCI provides compute, storage and network infrastructure for the ADA, and is supported by a team of over 70 staff, funded through Australia’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) [67].
• The Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Incorporated (ACSPRI) [20] provides development operations support for the ADA on a contractual basis. ACSPRI and ADA have a long-term collaboration dating back to the establishment of both organisations in 1981.

Operational Costs and Recruitment

The ADA is funded on an ongoing basis by the Australian National University (ANU), primarily through the National Institutes Grant [68] provided directly to the ANU by the Australian Federal Government. This funding has been supporting ANU since its establishment in 1981. This core funding is supplemented by project grant funding from a variety of sources. In the last 10 years, this has included funding through the Australian Research Council, Australian Research Data Commons, Horizon Europe (European Commission) and contract research with government agencies and other external partners.

Recognised host institution

The ADA is hosted by the Australian National University (ANU) and housed organisationally within POLIS: The Social Policy Research Centre in the Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS) at ANU.

The Australian National University was established in 1946 through an Act of the Australian Federal Government and continues to be governed by the parliament under the auspices of the Australian National University Act 1991 and the Public Governance, Performance & Accountability Act 2013 [69]. The Australian Data Archive was established within the Research School of Social Sciences in 1981 and has continued to be part of the RSSS since its establishment.

Staffing and infrastructure support for the ADA has enabled the operation of the archive for over 40 years. The continuing operations of the archive will continue to focus on including a breadth of funding sources to supplement the ANU core funding, and use of outsourcing partners to support core archive staff to provide relevant operational functions. As ADA’s budget is part of the overall ANU corporate budget, there is no separate documentation of the ADA’s budget that can be provided. However, while no funding is certain, we expect this strategy to continue providing a sound basis for ADA operations into the foreseeable future.