Decadal Plan for Social Science Research Infrastructure 2023-32
Why a Decadal Plan?
This Decadal Plan seeks to build sector-wide consensus around the research capabilities social science disciplines will need, over the next 10 years, to perform at the global stage amidst the unfolding digital revolution. The plan will:
- Describe the kind of platforms, capabilities, tools, datasets and standards social scientists will need over the next years; and identify viable models to deliver them as national infrastructures
- List the skills and incentives needed to empower the Australian researcher workforce to use those infrastructures
- Make a compelling case for investing in those infrastructures, which highlights benefits for social progress, better government, and the redefinition of boundaries for social science (what we can aspire to, and achieve).
Partners
- Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
- ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods (CSRM) and Australian Data Archive (ADA)
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S)
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Life Course Centre)
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR)
- Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR), The University of Queensland.
Timeframe
Detailed project planning is currently under development, with an indicative/interim completion date to September 2023. More details will be published here soon.
Precedents
- Social Science Research Infrastructure (roundtable, April 2022), in which social science infrastructure leaders, from universities and research institutes, public research agencies and the community sector, across the country, agreed that the sector needs to pull forces together to achieve major breakthroughs in research capability
- Australia’s Data-Enabled Research Futures: The Social Sciences (report, June 2022), which identifies the development of a Decadal Plan as the first of seven priorities to situate Australian social science research strategically towards the future.
Get involved
- Stay in the loop by joining the Decadal Plan’s LinkedIn Group
- Or email the project lead, Dr Isabel Ceron, isabel.ceron@socialsciences.org.au to find out more.

Steering Group
- Prof Kaarin Anstey FASSA FAHMS
- Dr Chris Hatherly
- Dr Amanda Lawrence
- A/Prof Steven McEachern
- A/Prof Francis Mitrou
- Dr Jacob Prehn
- Prof Julian Thomas FAHA
- A/Prof Wojtek Tomaszewski
- Prof Mark Western FASSA