Dear Professors Andrew Turpin, Julie McLeod, Justin Zobel, and Liz Sonenberg,
 
We, the Training & Engagement team of Research Computing Services, write to share our concerns about the proposed disestablishment of researcher training services as part of the Pandemic Reset Plan (PRP) and Professional Services Redesign (PSR). The change under consideration for Business Services (BS) would terminate our team from Research Computing Services (RCS), with no provisions for replacement or transfer.
 
Over the last seven years this team has delivered training for a wide variety of digital tools to thousands of local and international researchers - over 6,000 in fact. The training programmes which will be dropped in 2021 upon approval of this change include R, Python, MATLAB, NVivo, LaTeX, 3D data and visualisation, and Melbourne Research Cloud. This team are also the originators and hosts of the international Research Bazaar (ResBaz) conference, and went on to form part of the inaugural organising committee for Researcher Connect in 2020.
 
Our training and community services are essential to the work researchers do whilst engaged at the University. Demand for training has only grown this year, with some communities expanding approximately 350%. These researchers would have otherwise had to seek out training at great cost to themselves, their research and their supervisors. Proprietary NVivo training alone would have cost our community of 720 NVivo users $187,200 this year, for example. We are concerned that this training will be replaced by the outsourcing of services and a move to user-pays models.
 
We are a hub for interdisciplinary collaboration. The Training & Engagement Team are referred to for training by faculty and staff across the University. This includes postgraduate supervisors, the Early Career Academic Networks, the Graduate Student Association (GSA), Department of Graduate Research, Scholarly Services, Melbourne Data Analytics Platform (MDAP), the Social and Cultural Informatics Platform team (SCIP), and Research Infrastructure Platforms.
 
Our disestablishment risks the loss of irreplaceable institutional knowledge and breaking priceless partnerships. The Training & Engagement team have been able to engage thousands of researchers across all disciplines, faculties and divisions, because of the invaluable and specialised skills they have developed as a team and individually over the years.
 
We call on Business Services leadership to engage in proactive consultation with all areas across the University who collaborate with the team.
 
We call on the research leaders of the University to save this irreplaceable service and the team that makes it possible.
 
We thank you on behalf of our research community for taking any action you can to avert what would clearly be a devastating and regressive outcome for research at the University of Melbourne.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
The Research Computing Services Training & Engagement Team,
With support from the undersigned: