USC becomes a full QCIF Member

26/02/2021

USC has become a full QCIF Member, enabling its researchers greater access to QCIF’s resources and services.

The university, which has campuses from Brisbane to the Fraser Coast in Queensland,  upgraded its longstanding connection to QCIF as an Associate Member to full membership as of 1 January 2021.

USC researchers (staff and RHD students) can now access QCIF’s cloud and high-performance compute services, bioinformatics consultancy, and digital skills training mostly for free, as well as other QCIF resources and services.

As part of full membership, USC Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) Professor Roland De Marco was appointed to QCIF’s Board late last year.

“USC has experienced considerable growth in its research, and now has a demonstrable need to access the significant support offered by QCIF in computational and data science, especially in the bioinformatics and digital skills training domains,” said Roland.

QCIF CEO John Bancroft, who has become a USC Adjunct Professor (Research and Innovation), is delighted the university has upgraded its membership.

“It is great news that USC has become a full QCIF Member and will now receive all the benefits of membership of our organisation. We will work together to provide more and better e-resources, systems, skills and training for USC’s researchers to enable them to carry out more leading-edge research and innovation,” said John.

“I am delighted to have joined USC as an Adjunct Professor and am looking forward to working closely with USC to forge new partnerships and deliver new collaborative research and innovation projects with both academia and industry, to help to create economic impact in our region.”

USC is currently in the process of hiring a QCIF eResearch Analyst (eRA), most likely based at its Sunshine Coast campus at Sippy Downs, to support its researchers in their use of QCIF’s services. 

This eRA will likely establish a regular Hacky Hour at USC, just as other QCIF eRAs have done at QCIF’s six other Queensland members, namely The University of Queensland, Griffith University, Queensland University of Technology, James Cook University, the University of Southern Queensland and CQUniversity.

Hacky Hour is a free, informal meet-up in which researchers get help from IT experts with their research-related IT problems.

If you are interested to learn how your institution can become a QCIF Member, please visit our website, or contact Troy Lockett, QCIF’s Business Development and Communications Manager: troy.lockett@qcif.edu.au.