Partnership and community

Ontario’s DRI ecosystem is a complex network of organizations that provide researchers with support and services spanning data collection, computation and analysis, data management and knowledge translation. The DRI community includes research and academic institutions, government agencies, hospitals, and private companies. A key aspect of Compute Ontario’s role is to facilitate funding, partnership and alignment within the community, both provincially and across Canada.

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada (Alliance), funded by the Government of Canada (as of writing, via Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) department), oversees coordination of the national ecosystem and works in partnership with national, provincial and regional organizations to deliver DRI services to researchers. Four regional organizations (PrairiesDRI, CO, Calcul Québec, ACENET and Universities BC) coordinate six national ARC platforms, two of which reside in Ontario and CANARIE provides the secure high-speed network . 

In Ontario, four consortia support the province’s DRI users, each of whom play a unique and essential role in providing access to ARC systems and DRI services. Ontario researchers also have access to significant compute resources through domain-specific DRI partners such as the Vector Institute, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), ICES, and Ontario Brain Institute (OBI).

Several project-dedicated ARC systems are also available to researchers involved in specific research projects. Domain- and project-specific DRI resources are located within departmental research groups, as well as research hospitals and institutions. While national ARC systems (Nibi and Trillium) are available at no cost to all researchers affiliated with a Canadian academic institution or research institute, domain-specific systems and project-dedicated facilities have their own access policies.  

Scholar’s Portal provides researchers with essential RDM services and the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION) provides high-speed fiber-optic network services to support research, education, and innovation. 

CO works to coordinate activities and funding across these many partners to minimise duplication of resources while maximising return on investment, efficiency, accessibility and economic impact. CO also facilitates access to all the services provided by the national DRI ecosystem, and to provide independent advice and guidance to the Government of Ontario and Ontario’s research institutions.