The winners will be announced on 18 March 2026 at the 2026 APS Data Awards Gala Night.
Data Leadership and Capability Building
Trove Metadata Manager Project – National Library of Australia
Through the Trove Metadata Manager project, the National Library of Australia has transformed the way Australian libraries, galleries and museums manage and share their data. The system prepares Australian libraries, galleries and museums for making collections discoverable in innovative ways. Immediately, it enables fast, efficient and accurate data sharing between more than 900 organisations.
Data Capability Innovation in Antarctica – Australian Antarctic Data Centre
The Australian Antarctic Data Centre (AADC) exemplifies data leadership and innovation, deploying new technologies and innovative machine-learning approaches to support Australia’s Antarctic interests. The AADC has been developing leading-edge data capabilities aboard Australia’s icebreaker RSV Nuyina, and equipping Antarctic stations with new sensors and aerial platforms to improve data reliability and accuracy.
National Climate Risk Assessment Climate and Hazards Data – Australian Climate Service
ACS led a nationally coordinated initiative to uplift climate data capability across the APS, delivering high-resolution, bias-adjusted hazard datasets for Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment. Through strategic data leadership, reproducible workflows, and open-access infrastructure, the project enabled evidence-based decision-making and strengthened climate risk intelligence across government.
Data Sharing and Partnerships
Combatting fraud through private and public sector data sharing with Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX) – Australian Taxation Office
Collaboration across the scams and fraud ecosystem enhanced with real time information exchange is a core weapon in the fight against scammers and fraudsters. As part of strengthening this collaboration, the ATO is the first government agency to become a full member of the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX), setting a precedent for broader inter agency cooperation and shared intelligence.
The First Five Years project ─ Unlocking powerful insights into what drives child development through integrated data – Department of Education
The First Five Years project brings together data on child development, childcare attendance and quality, within PLIDA to discover which factors drive child development. Through strong partnerships and a commitment to data sharing across government and academia, FFY delivers evidence-based findings that have informed policies, empowered families, and built enduring capability for future child-focused data initiatives.
Understanding climate risk to communities – Australian Climate Service
A partnership between the Australian Climate Service (ACS), Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO has developed a suite of innovative indices and analyses to advance national understanding of climate-related risk to communities.
Data Science and Analytics
Data Team – Heartbeat Neural Network for Fraud Detection – IP Australia
The Heartbeat Neural Network is an AI-driven anomaly detection model that demonstrates how data science can be applied to strengthen digital resilience. It supports the integrity of IP Australia’s digital services and contributes to strategic decision-making by providing a scalable, data-informed approach to fraud detection. It reflects a commitment to responsible AI, providing secure, efficient, and transparent public service outcomes.
Analysis and Insights team – Tourism Research Australia, Austrade
Tourism Research Australia’s Forecasts project delivers clear, data-driven insights on the future of Australia’s tourism sector. Using advanced analytics and expert input, the forecasts inform government, industry, and community decisions – supporting sustainable growth, investment, and planning across the visitor economy. Empowering stakeholders with accessible, actionable intelligence for a thriving tourism future.
Illuminating Australia’s invisible industries with the Emerging Industries Database – Department of Industry, Science and Resources
In a first for Australia, the Department of Industry, Science and Resources has combined deep learning algorithms and econometric methods to provide new, robust and repeatable data and statistical analysis on Australia’s invisible emerging industries including artificial intelligence, quantum, biotechnology, prefabricated construction, clean energy, robotics, and the space industry.
Data Visualisation and Storytelling
From satellite to story: Visualising Australia's changing landscapes in the Digital Atlas – Geoscience Australia
The Digital Atlas of Australia brings over 35 years of Digital Earth Australia’s Earth observation data together with trusted national datasets, turning complex information into clear, interactive visualisations and compelling stories. This helps Australians explore change, understand context and make evidence-based decisions that shape our environment, communities and future.
Communicating cascading and compounding risk in Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment – Australian Climate Service
Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment delivers a groundbreaking systems-based understanding of climate risk, paired with innovative storytelling tools to inform climate adaptation. Through four integrated products, it equips decision-makers across society with accessible, credible data, information and insights to support climate adaptation planning, action and monitoring nationwide.
Space Debris Monitoring & Mapping – Australian Space Agency
The initiative combines space debris re-entry data with geospatial mapping to provide awareness of re-entry events relevant to Australia. Through visualisation, it conveys technical concepts and sometimes uncertain outcomes, in an easy to understand manner. This work supports public interests, and promotes international collaboration and cooperation in space operations.
Data Systems and Innovation
Building the Person Linkage Spine with Splink – Australian Bureau of Statistics
The ABS Person Linkage Spine is a key piece of Australian data infrastructure that underpins the production of PLIDA and the NDDA. The implementation of Splink for the 2025 Person Linkage Spine build enabled the Spine to be built 50% faster and creates opportunities for further improvements in the future. This has wide-reaching benefits to a range of users.
Whole of Australian Government and Census Data Coding Capability Project – Australian Bureau of Statistics
The ABS Data Coding Capability supports real-world data coding (assigning numbered and labelled categories to free text) using the latest official ABS classification versions. Trained on AI Machine Learning (ML) models, and made available across government for coding occupation data, the capability uses cloud computing for power and scale to achieve highly automated, high-quality, and consistent coding.
AI Tiger Team – Data & Insights – Department of Veterans’ Affairs
CLIKChat is DVA’s secure, AI-powered chatbot that transforms policy navigation for staff supporting veterans. Developed in-house, it delivers instant, act-specific answers, robust privacy, and ethical compliance. CLIKChat streamlines service delivery, saves staff time, and sets a new benchmark for responsible AI in government, demonstrating innovation, measurable impact, and scalable potential across the Australian Public Service.
Early Data Career
Hannah Bourbon, Expert Elicitation in Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment – Australian Climate Service
Australia’s interconnected, intensifying climate risks demand a shift from isolated assessments to consider systemic, cascading risks, and adaptive strategies needed. As an early career social scientist and researcher, Hannah Bourbon led a structured expert elicitation and transdisciplinary approach, evaluating risks and types of response required. This informed national adaptation planning, offering clear, evidence-based insights to build resilience across interconnected systems.
Cross-agency project team, Three steps to ethically identify Indigenous data in the APS – Graduate Data Network
Indigenous data is a simple phrase with a big definition. The Maiam nayri Wingara Collective defines it as data that is ‘about and may affect Indigenous peoples both collectively and individually’. Identifying Indigenous data supports self-determination but isn’t easy. This project, completed by Isabelle Greco, Cheryn Lander, Rebecca Pay, David Heim, Tanika Sharman and Vinay Kamath in collaboration with DEWR and the NIAA, outlines actions we can all take to help our agencies make a difference.
Alexander Pritchard, Live Dashboard to Assist Grant Assessment and Recommendations (LDAGAR) – Department of Social Services
Since joining as a data graduate in February 2023, Alexander has rapidly developed skills to deliver the Live Dashboard to Assist Grant Assessment and Recommendations (LDAGAR). This innovative geospatial tool transformed Australian Government grant decision-making for the $150 million annual Financial Wellbeing and Capability program, consisting of 2500 applications. LDAGAR enables a more efficient grants decision making process, fosters collaboration and shared decision-making. It captures decisions in real time, and most importantly utilises geo-spatial capability that enables DSS to understand the service footprint at different geographic scales.
Diversity and Inclusion in Data
Sentinels of Sea Country: First Nation-Led use of Drones and AI in managing Ghost Nets and Marine Debris – Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
The Ghost Net and Marine Debris initiative has operationalised First Nation ranger-led design of monitoring using AI and drones in coastal areas across Northern Australia. The rapid collection of drone data by rangers and use of AI has many benefits including real-time insights, in delivering caring for Country activities, to prioritise and undertake marine debris clean-up efforts.
Unaccompanied and overlooked – unlocking data to inform child-specific homelessness services – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
Unaccompanied children who need homelessness support were previously hidden in national statistics. We worked with the sector to use existing data in a new way and found that 13,300 Australian children access services without a parent or guardian. This new information allows governments and service providers to develop targeted services to better support these vulnerable children’s distinct needs.
Building trust through inclusive processes for disability data – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
The Central Analytics Team has worked with people with disability, their representatives and other experts to deliver community-informed disability flags that provide larger cohorts for research. The project expands representation, enables new insights and makes findings accessible. At every step, disability co-governance and the lived experiences of people with disability guides the work, supporting better insights, fairness and inclusion.