The National Environmental Prediction System (NEPS) Scoping Study is broadening its community consultations and we invite you to help shape the development of this key support system for Australia’s research and decision-making communities.
The 2016 National Research Infrastructure (NRI) Roadmap identified a NEPS as a potential new research capability and a scoping study was endorsed via the 2018 Research Infrastructure Investment Plan. In November 2019 the NEPS Scoping Study team prepared an submitted a final System Design of NEPS.
The System Design document incorporates the thinking of the NEPS Scoping Study Expert Panel and ideas arising from the Scoping Study’s pilot stage consultations with select stakeholders. It comprises the following elements:
- information architecture - to support access, management, integration and use of services to deliver unprecedented understanding of the Australian environment;
- technical architecture - to support information flows and data management; and
- social architecture - to build consensus on and enable contributing National Research Infrastructure (NRI) projects to both participate in and benefit from NEPS.
The document addresses the mechanisms required to support networking or federation across existing NRI, national, and State and Territory environmental monitoring systems data and to deliver a capability that facilitates access to integrated data and modelling.
Submissions to the NEPS Scoping Study can be structured around the System Design (above) or they can comprise broader ideas and comments.
Submissions to the NEPS Scoping Study
close 5pm AEDT Friday, 31 January 2020
(email tern@uq.edu.au).
Nation-wide consultations
The NEPS Scoping Study Expert Panel has commenced its broader community consultation stage to obtain input from scientists, environmental managers, students, policy makers, industry consultants and concerned citizens across the country.
The Scoping Study team started these broader consultations in September 2019, meeting with personnel from the infrastructure projects that make up the National Earth and Environmental Facilities Forum (NEESFF), which covers Geoscience Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology and multiple NCRIS-funded projects.
Between November 2019 and February 2020, the Expert Panel will take the consultation process to a number of capital cities and hold workshops with key research institutions and government agencies. Amongst others, there was a presentation at the November GEO Week in Canberra and a workshop is scheduled at the Ecological Society of Australia conference in Launceston on 27 November.
A complete schedule of NEPS townhall-style consultations will be published as soon as ppossible on the official NEPS website: https://science.uq.edu.au/neps
The panel is also accepting written submissions until Friday, 31 January 2020. These submissions can be structured around the documents already on the NEPS website or they can comprise broader ideas, comments about the need for environmental prediction, and organisational structures for achieving this outcome.
The consultation process will help develop necessary national consensus around a NEPS proposal and significantly shape the final investment plan for presentation to the Australian Government in mid-2020.
The NEPS Scoping Study Expert Panel looks forward to hearing from you and receiving your valuable input to this national research capability for Australia.
- For more information on the NEPS Scoping Study please visit http://www.science.uq.edu.au/neps or subscribe to the TERN newsletter.
- Submissions to the NEPS Scoping Study (email tern@uq.edu.au) close 5pm AEDT Friday, 31 January 2020.
