We encourage researchers across the University to engage with us at any stage of their research project through one or more of the following engagement avenues and funding arrangements.
Work with us
There are several ways to work with our team.
Research projects lasting at least 3 months with full or part-time commitment from the MDAP team. There are two main ways to work with us here:
- Faculty Supported Collaborations
- Researcher Funded Engagements
We also offer consultancy, expert advice, advocacy and involvement in shorter term research projects – whether you are planning a new project, deep within it, or wrapping up.
- Quick consultations, advice and short projects
You'll find further details on each engagement type in the accordions below.
Ways to engage with MDAP
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Faculty supported Collaborations
A significant fraction of MDAP is devoted to faculty-funded research collaborations. Once a year we run an open, merit-based based allocation scheme. Researchers can engage with us for 3 to 9 months with costs covered by their faculty.
Faculty Supported Collaborations FAQs
2025 Collaboration round
NOTE: The 2024 Collaboration round closed 11.59pm, Monday 2 October 2023.
Key dates for 2025 round
LOIs generally open in September, and the process to full application and decision outcome runs through to December. We will publish key dates closer to that time.
About the LOI process
The LOI form is a short introduction to your proposed research project. It contains areas for your contact details and faculty, a short description of your project and intended outcomes/outputs, a couple of questions on the stage of your project and any other info you want to provide in support of your LOI.
When you submit an LOI, it will go through a triage process, primarily to review if we will be able to help, or if your project is better suited to another area at UoM. If a full Collaboration is not appropriate, this is a great way to get the conversation started.
Full application process
After the LOI, we invite you to move to the full application process, where we’ll ask additional details about your project using an easy to complete Qualatrics form, including:
- Project aims
- Co-investigators
- Significance and research impact
- Alignment to Advancing Melbourne and your Faculty priorities and strategies
- How you see MDAP contributing to the project
- Proposed project timeline
- The nature, access to and stage of readiness of your data – including legal, ethical or commercial sensitivities, and alignment with open / Fair data principles (where relevant)
Introduction to Collaborations
Watch the introduction to Collaborations info session from the 2024 round. We go over general Collaborations info, ways to engage with MDAP, the LOI process, a couple of short case studies from HASS and STEM-M. You can turn on closed captions and read a transcript if needed.
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Researcher-funded engagements
We are available year-round to work with you on researcher-funded projects. There’s two main ways to do this:
You can engage individual MDAP staff through secondments, charged at a salary cost-recovery rate.
MDAP can assemble a multi-disciplinary team of data specialists to collaborate on any research topic, charged at Academic Level C1 rates.There are no set limits on the timing or length of funded engagements, subject to staff availability.
For more information visit Researcher-funded Engagements FAQs or read the FAQs then get in touch via the form below.
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Quick consultations, advice and short projects
Working effectively with data can be complex, and it’s easy to get stuck. We offer consultancy, expert advice, advocacy and involvement in shorter term research projects – whether you are planning a new project, deep within it, or wrapping up.
Depending on requirements and availability, we can provide hands-on assistance with small parts of your data-intensive project, either for free or at cost-recovery rates.
Faculty supported
Depending on capacity and capability, we can either help or redirect you to someone who can, including the Melbourne Coder Network.
Researcher funded
If you have research funding, you could consider paying for an engagement at cost-recovery rates (see above).
We can point you in the right direction!
If we don’t have the expertise on hand, we can redirect to other individuals, groups and services across the University who may be able to help. For example: