With contributions from ANU (RSB, CMBE and DVCR) and CSIRO (National Research Collections) the Centre for Biodiversity Analysis has been renewed for a further three years.

With a core focus of incorporating genomics, bioinformatics and spatial modelling into understanding the evolution of Australia’s biodiversity and its protection, the CBA has built an interactive research community across ~60 ANU and CSIRO labs in its first five years (2012-17).

The Centre has used its modest resources to develop collaborations via visiting scientists, seminars and the delivery of 13 ECR-focused training workshops, four annual conferences, and seed funding of 30 Ignition grants, with 107 researchers and students involved in an Ignition project to date.

This building of capacity and community has led to new collaborative research funding (ARC DP, Linkage) and several co-supervised students, and contributed strongly to successful bids for infrastructure (SIEF-RI $10M, including the new Ecogenomics & Bioinformatics Laboratory) and research support (CSIRO Environomics Future Sciences Platform 2017-2020, $5.5M; Bioplatforms Australia Oz Mammals Genomes Initiative 2016-2018, $1.1M).

The CBA has also been building relationships with NGOs and government at the science-policy-management interface, e.g., the 2016 conference on the Interface of Evolutionary Biology and Policy Impact.

Over 2017-20 the CBA will continue to build on its activities of the last five years and, depending on the interests of CBA members and participants, provide opportunities to broaden the Centre's focus to include wider applications of evolutionary biology.

New activities will include funding for cross-disciplinary synthesis working groups and targeted recruitment of joint ANU-CSIRO Honours and PhD students, with the aim, along with continuing activities, of further strengthening interactions across ANU and CSIRO via the National Agriculture and Environmental Science Precinct.

We also welcome guidance (via a short questionnaire) from our CBA community in focusing and prioritising where the CBA allocates its available resources from here on.

The CBA has just announced a new round of Ignition grants; TEA Talks (Techniques in Evolutionary Analysis) will recommence in August; and its 5^th annual conference, Genomics and Collections: Adaptation to Macroevolution, is being held in September.

Please contact the CBA Coordinator if you would like to be included on the CBA’s email list for news, seminar, workshop and funding announcements.

If you would like your lab to be involved in CBA activites and included on our Members page, please send your contact details and your research interests relevant to the scope of the CBA. Students are considered part of the CBA via their supervisor's membership.