Executive Summary

In modern health and medical research, the gap between clinical data collection and actionable analytical insight depends heavily on the integrity, security, and scalability of underlying digital infrastructure. As Australian universities and health districts scale multi-site trials, engineering robust data solutions becomes paramount.

Key Infrastructure Pillars

Building high-integrity research environments requires addressing three foundational engineering requirements:

• Zero-Trust Data Isolation: Implementing granular role-based access governance and encrypted data pipelines for sensitive patient telemetry.
• Automated Data Quality Assurance: Establishing pre-ingestion validation protocols to eliminate schema errors across multi-site hospital networks.
• Audit Trail Integrity: Maintaining immutable transaction logging compliant with Australian health privacy standards and HREC ethics approvals.

Impact on Medical Research

By deploying standardized, high-integrity infrastructure, clinical research groups significantly reduce turnaround times for trial data processing while ensuring complete security and regulatory compliance.

Securing the integrity and privacy of our clients’ intellectual property is our top priority.

In an era where data is the new currency, we are excited to announce that we are bolstering our defensive toolkit by integrating NordVPN into our cybersecurity workflow. By leveraging industry-leading encryption, we are adding a critical layer of protection for our researchers.

Why This Matters for the Research Sector:

• Data Integrity: Protecting proprietary findings from unauthorised interception.
• Secure Collaboration: Ensuring remote access to research environments remains airtight.
• Global Connectivity: Safely navigating the web while maintaining a hardened digital footprint.

We are incredibly grateful to the team at NordVPN for providing us with free licenses. This support is vital in helping us operate more securely as we continue to use trusted, world-class brands to safeguard the work that moves society forward.

Technology Partner

Partnering with proven leaders in the cybersec space allows us to focus on what we do best: supporting innovation through reliable, secure infrastructure.

Stay secure, and keep discovering.

Intersect is using the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud to power innovative digital research skills building across Australia.

As digital methods become central to research in every discipline, the question facing universities and institutes is no longer whether to build digital capability, but how to do it at scale. For years, instructors spent the first half-hour of every workshop untangling conflicting software versions, variable laptop setups and missing datasets. Every minute lost to troubleshooting was a minute not spent on the digital research skills that matter: coding, data wrangling, using cloud services and working reproducibly.

Intersect Australia has removed this frustrating technical burden on researchers by leveraging Australia’s national research cloud, the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud (Nectar). By embedding the Nectar at the core of its skills training delivery, Intersect has turned what used to be hours of setup into more learning time, giving nearly 6,000 researchers every year a consistent, ready-to-use, online learning environment. In 2024 alone, 3,800 researchers – 65% of all Intersect trainees – learned on virtual machines (VMs) provisioned on Nectar, ensuring everyone started with the same tools, the same datasets and the same learning opportunities.

Intersect’s close relationship with the ARDC spans over 12 years. As a Nectar node, Intersect has been providing vital cloud computing services that underpin Australian research. Nectar is operated and maintained by the ARDC in partnership with 10 institutions across Australia and New Zealand, supporting thousands of research projects and 37 universities. This long-term collaboration between Intersect and the ARDC has been a powerful catalyst for innovation in research computing services and in building digital research skills.

Aidan Wilson, Digital Research Services Manager, Intersect, said, “The scalability and robustness provided by our Nectar-based systems have been critical to our success… it provides a standard, universal platform to learn core skills.”

The Challenge: Building Skills at National Scale, Without the Headaches

Intersect provides skills-building, research support and technical solutions to 10 universities and other organisations across Australia. This training and research support spans all research domains, from coding basics in Python and R to advanced computational methods such as SQL and High Performance Computing (HPC).

With nearly 6,000 researchers trained annually – including HDR students, academics, and professionals from various sectors – the sheer scale and diversity of Intersect’s audience creates significant logistical challenges for its skills-building programs.

For years, research instructors faced a frustrating truth: the start of every workshop was often lost to technical troubleshooting. This time spent fixing issues was a minute not spent teaching core skills like coding and data wrangling.

The first barrier was the pre-course setup. Researchers, especially those new to digital methods, often struggled through instructions to install complex software and datasets onto their own computers before the workshop even began.

Once training started, the sheer diversity of a national audience became an obstacle. Conflicting operating systems, variable laptop setups, and missing software meant instructors spent valuable time acting as part-time tech support, struggling to get everyone on the same page.

For advanced skills like HPC, the challenge was even greater. Trainers had to navigate the varied policies and technical configurations of different institutional clusters. This sometimes forced researchers to practice on sensitive production systems, which was far from ideal.

Kathryn Unsworth, Manager of Skilled Workforce, ARDC, confirms that setup is a significant barrier for digital research training. “The setup required for digital research training remains one of the biggest barriers for participants. It creates unnecessary technical overhead for trainers and often leads to an uneven learning environment. Some participants get left behind before the session even starts, while those ready to go are stuck waiting to get to the substance.”

Intersect needed a way to deliver consistent, reliable environments that removed these barriers entirely.

A Unified Cloud Classroom: Trainstation Meets Nectar

Intersect’s answer is Trainstation, a secure, browser-accessible training platform that provides every participant with a ready-to-use environment, with no local installs required. It represents the evolution of a decade-long journey:

1. Early phase: Like many organisations, Intersect began with “bring your own laptop” workshops. In practice, this meant sacrificing teaching time to tech support.
2. Virtualisation phase: Intersect moved to provisioning individual VMs per attendee, pre-configured with tools and data to remove local installation hurdles.
3. Platform phase: Since the launch of Trainstation in 2024, Intersect now provisions user accounts per attendee on a single training platform, orchestrated from a console machine for speed and consistency.

Today, the Trainstation console and 4 Trainstation nodes run on the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud, delivering a robust, uniform learner experience from day one. From a single orchestration environment, Intersect can provision accounts rapidly; whether the course is on Python, R, Unix or SQL, every participant signs in to the same standardised setup, with the right libraries and datasets ready to go. It means that Intersect’s trainers can rely on the infrastructure to provide a robust, consistent experience for all attendees.

And the training is being well-received by researchers. One of the participants in an Intersect course said, “It was one of the best short courses I have participated in – I really liked that we could interact and follow along in real time with the activities – I learn by doing, so I love this.”

The ARDC commends Intersect’s solution to cumbersome training setups. Kathryn said, “Hats off to Intersect for removing that setup burden, giving everyone a fair go and allowing the training to focus on what really matters.”

Ben Chiu, Director, Services at ARDC said, “Building digital research capability at scale requires more than great training content – it requires accessible infrastructure to build confidence in skills. By leveraging the Nectar Research Cloud, Intersect’s platform removes much of the technical friction involved in setting up learning environments, allowing researchers to spend more time building the data and AI skills needed for modern research.”

Innovation Spotlight: A Cluster-in-the-Cloud for HPC Skills

HPC training adds a unique twist. Institutions often prefer learners to be trained before granting access to production clusters. Meanwhile, differences between clusters – hardware, schedulers, policies – make consistent, transferable training notoriously difficult.

Intersect has solved this with a simulated Slurm cluster running entirely inside Docker containers on the Nectar Research Cloud. This sandboxed environment:

• Replicates the HPC experience without using production systems, protecting real users and avoiding local admin overhead.
• Teaches universal HPC concepts like job scripts, queues, resource requests and fair use without being tied to any one institution’s configuration.
• Removes administrative burden for HPC teams, because Intersect controls user accounts in the training environment, institutions don’t need to provision temporary training access.

The result is both practical and powerful. The environment is so effective that completing this Nectar-based course is now a mandatory prerequisite for access to the HPC cluster at Deakin University, demonstrating institutional trust in the model and its outcomes.

What’s Next: AI and Beyond

The ARDC Nectar Research Cloud is the vital infrastructure enabling Intersect’s scalable, cloud-first training model, which is essential as the demand for AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) skills rises. It is with Nectar as the stable foundation that Intersect can continuously adapt to new tools and methods, as demonstrated by their recent AI Bootcamps and Slurm-based HPC pilot program.

In addition to building digital research skills, Intersect and ARDC partnered to create an AI-ready application that helps researchers use Nectar GPUs for AI/ML methods. This solution provides standard Nectar AI/ML virtual machine images with pre-installed tools, making AI more accessible by reducing the need for extensive coding and IT knowledge. Through Nectar’s Application Catalogue, researchers can now easily select and apply various modelling components, from computer vision tools to large language models, to their own projects.

Together, Intersect and the ARDC are ensuring that digital research skills aren’t a barrier to discovery, but a catalyst for it.

Learn more about Intersect and the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud.

The ARDC is enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) to support national digital research infrastructure for Australian researchers.

Written by Esther Kane (Intersect) and Jo Savill (ARDC). Reviewed by Kathryn Unswoth and Ben Chiu (ARDC).

Generative AI in Scientific Discovery

The rapid emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI presents unprecedented opportunities to transform how literature synthesis, code generation, and qualitative data extraction are conducted in academic research.

March Roll-Out Highlights

The March AI Bootcamp series introduces structured, hands-on learning modules tailored specifically for university researchers:

• Prompt Engineering for Researchers: Crafting reproducible, high-precision prompts for academic workflows and data processing.
• Open-Source LLM Fine-Tuning: Hands-on training in deploying and fine-tuning open models (such as Llama and Mistral) on local or cloud GPUs.
• Retrieval-Augmentation (RAG): Building custom knowledge retrieval systems connected to private research document repositories.

Responsible AI Governance

Every bootcamp emphasizes ethical AI application, data privacy safeguards, hallucination mitigation, and academic integrity compliance.

Shaping the Future of AI Training

To ensure our specialized training programs directly address the evolving requirements of Australian researchers, Intersect launched a national Expression of Interest (EOI) survey across all member institutions.

Survey Focus Areas

The EOI survey captures critical institutional requirements across multiple dimensions:

• Domain-Specific AI Use Cases: Identifying demand across computer vision, natural language processing, tabular machine learning, and multi-modal models.
• Compute Readiness: Assessing local GPU infrastructure and HPC queue experience among participating research groups.
• Schedule & Delivery Preferences: Customizing intensive multi-day bootcamps for hybrid on-campus and online delivery.

Collaborative Curriculum Design

Insights gathered from the survey directly inform the expansion of upcoming bootcamp modules and institutional training schedules.

Empowering South Australian Researchers

Intersect hosted an intensive hands-on showcase in Adelaide designed to empower researchers across South Australia to harness artificial intelligence and machine learning tools in their daily research workflows.

Workshop Highlights

Attended by researchers, PhD candidates, and research support leaders from across South Australian universities, the session featured:

• Live AI Demonstrations: Practical walk-throughs of automated image segmentation and natural language text extraction.
• GPU Acceleration Strategies: Leveraging regional cluster hardware and cloud resources to scale model training.
• 1-on-1 Analytical Consultations: Direct engagement with Intersect Digital Research Analysts to troubleshoot ongoing project code.

Building Regional Capability

The event reinforced Intersect's commitment to delivering equal-access, high-impact technical training directly to regional research hubs.

A Month of Collaboration & Innovation

October marked a milestone month of community engagement, technical workshops, conference presentations, and collaborative gatherings across Intersect's member network.

Key October Milestones

A summary of major activities and achievements delivered during the month includes:

• National eResearch Conferences: Active participation and technical presentations sharing best practices in research data platforms.
• Record Workshop Delivery: Over 40 intensive training sessions conducted across member university campuses.
• Hacky Hour Expansion: Launching new weekly peer support sessions for Linux and Python research coders.

Strengthening Network Ties

These initiatives foster vibrant communities of practice, ensuring research teams can share insights and overcome computational hurdles together.

Annual Training Impact Overview

The 2024 Research Digital Skills Training Program Report highlights a record-breaking year of training delivery, participant satisfaction, and institutional capability growth across Australia.

Key Performance Benchmarks

Highlights from the 2024 reporting period demonstrate significant national reach:

• Thousands Upskilled: High participant attendance spanning higher-degree research (HDR) students, postdocs, and senior faculty.
• Diverse Course Catalog: More than 30 specialized course offerings covering Python, R, REDCap, Qualtrics, HPC, and AI.
• Outstanding Satisfaction Ratings: Maintaining over 90% positive feedback metrics for course quality and instructor expertise.

Looking Ahead

The report outlines strategic priorities for expanding advanced curriculum pathways, automated skill badges, and specialized domain tracks in upcoming reporting cycles.

Welcome to the Intersect AI Bootcamp Series

The AI Bootcamp is Intersect's flagship hands-on training initiative designed to equip researchers with practical skills in artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI architectures.

Core Bootcamp Tracks

The program offers structured learning pathways suited for varying computational backgrounds:

• Foundations of Machine Learning: Supervised and unsupervised learning using Scikit-Learn in Python.
• Deep Learning & Computer Vision: Building convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and object detection models in PyTorch.
• Generative AI & Large Language Models: Fine-tuning open-source LLMs, constructing RAG pipelines, and deploying AI models on HPC infrastructure.

Registration & Access

Explore upcoming session dates, institutional eligibility details, and registration links through our central training portal.