Grants & Opportunities

Redefining tissue-specific endothelial cells through bioengineered matrices. This project aims to improve our understanding of the biological mechanisms that drive blood vessel formation and function. The endothelial cells that make up each blood vessel are inherently unique across different sites within the human body and this project expects to generate new knowledge regarding their organ specificity. Using advanced bioengineering approaches, this project will map human endothelial cell specificity and develop state-of-the-art modelling technologies to improve knowledge of environmental influence on endothelial cell fate and function. This should provide a new framework to modulate the adaptive capacities of endothelial cells and can potentially enable more predictive and targeted drug efficacy and safety testing.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 0903 - Biomedical Engineering. Lead: Prof Laura Bray

Indigenous solutions to global challenges in the Pacific Islands. The global COVID 19 pandemic represents a unique opportunity to understand the nature and potential of Indigenous sustainable development in Pacific Island communities, where Indigenous practices have been central in responses to closed borders and industry downturns. This project proposes to analyse the efficacy and cultural value of new, pandemic-era Indigenous sustainable development initiatives in sustaining island communities. It aims to culminate in a novel geographic theory of Indigenous sustainable development, and to identify new opportunities to support the expansion of Indigenous sustainable development. This should better enable the Pacific Islands region to respond to climate change, pandemics and other global challenges.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 1604 - Human Geography. Lead: Dr Carol Farbotko

Illuminating the dark neutrophil glycoproteome. This project aims to shed light on the highly complex and dynamic sugar-coated surfaces of neutrophil white blood cells critical for the cell communication and function of our innate immune system. The project expects to generate molecular-level insights into neutrophil biology by detailing the structure, formation, regulation, interactions and functions of these cell-surface sugars across the varied neutrophil life stages using systems glycobiology approaches. The project will map the extensive sugar remodelling on and in the neutrophil and reveal new sugar-mediated mechanisms governing key immune processes. This project will benefit the community by expanding our knowledge of fundamental processes underpinning our innate immune system.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 0601 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Prof Morten Andersen

Multi-functional probes for global analysis of proteome stress in cells. This project aims to create a suite of multi-functional chemical probes to identify damaged proteins that undergo unfolding or specific modifications in cells under stress. These probes will not only generate fluorescence responses to reflect on protein quality control capacity but allow associated proteins and their networks to be identified in complex cellular environments, which is difficult to achieve by current methods. The expected outcome is to deliver new methodology for a comprehensive understanding of the correlation between quality control machinery, stress responses and cell functions. This should provide significant benefits, including contributing to fundamental knowledge on the molecular causes of neurodegenerative diseases.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 0601 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Prof Yuning Hong

Molecular movies using time-resolved momentum spectroscopies. This project aims to use time-resolved momentum spectroscopies to take snapshots of chemical and physical processes as they evolve in time. This project expects to use these molecular movies to track the changes to electron motion after they have absorbed light. Expected outcomes of this project include understanding how the motion of electrons can drive physical processes and induce chemical changes. This will provide significant benefits through expanding knowledge that will assist in controlling chemical reactions and developing technologies with improved performance, such as sensors and solar cells. . Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 0202 - Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics. Lead: Dr Darryl Jones

Regulating and countering structural inequality on digital platforms. This project aims to find legal, ethical, technical, and commercial opportunities to counter inequality online. It uses machine learning and custom data collection tools to create new knowledge about how digital platforms—including search engines, social media, peer economy, and news platforms—can help to tackle misogyny, racism, and other forms of structural discrimination. It uses this knowledge to investigate the extent to which private sector digital platforms can be expected to monitor and regulate the actions of their users, what responsibilities they have to avoid contributing to discrimination, hatred, intolerance and abuse, and how the law should develop to ensure that our digital environment is more equal and fair. . Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 1801 - Law. Lead: Prof Nicolas Suzor

Scalable and Robust Bayesian Inference for Implicit Statistical Models. This project aims to develop the next generation of efficient methods for fitting complex simulation-based statistical models to data. Practitioners and scientists are interested in such implicit models to enable discoveries, produce accurate predictions and inform decisions under uncertainty. However, the associated computational cost has restricted researchers to implicit models that must have a small number of parameters and be well specified, impeding scientific progress. This project will develop new computational methods and algorithms for implicit models that scale to high dimensions and are robust to misspecification. Benefits will arise from the more routine use of implicit models in epidemiology, biology, ecology and other fields.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 0104 - Statistics. Lead: Prof Christopher Drovandi

Counting a Sixth Mass Extinction. This project aims to investigate how values shape conservation science and policy by utilizing a feminist philosophy of science approach. This project expects to generate new biodiversity assessments by adjusting the cultural lenses through which species are counted and conservation status is assigned. Expected outcomes of this project include the creation of an interactive global biodiversity map, in which data changes when values change, which will reveal biodiversity trends, species, conservation risks and opportunities that currently remain outside conservation attention. This should provide significant benefits to biodiversity, by opening space for diverse values to broaden the scope of conservation science, ethics, and policy.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 2203 - Philosophy. Lead: Dr Arian Wallach

Digital and data literacies for sexual health policy and practice. New digital practices present significant challenges for the fields of sexual health promotion and sexual healthcare provision. This Fellowship brings sexual health policy-makers and professionals into dialogue with young adult users of digital apps and social platforms, via participatory co-design methods. Outcomes include theoretical and applied frameworks for digital literacy and data literacy in the context of sexual health. Outputs include knowledge-translation resources for sexual health professionals that will help them better engage with young adult’s everyday practices of digitally mediated intimacy, in the context of broader understandings of content moderation and regulation, platform governance, data privacy and data security. . Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 2001 - Communication and Media Studies. Lead: Prof Katherine Albury

Diving into deep-time: macroevolutionary patterns of aquatic tetrapods. This project aims to compare and contrast the broad-scale evolutionary patterns of the disparate lineages of aquatic tetrapod (e.g. whales, penguins, plesiosaurs). This project expects to generate new knowledge by utilising cutting-edge methods from several fields, e.g. three-dimensional scans, phylogenetic comparative methods and functional morphology. Expected outcomes include multiple high-quality publications and the development of new local and international collaborations. This will provide significant benefits, including revealing aquatic tetrapod evolution on an unprecedented scale and a better understanding of how some of Australia’s most iconic animals respond to global change, helping inform eco-tourism and conservation policies.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0603 - Evolutionary Biology. Lead: Dr Travis Park

Bioinspired hierarchically Intelligent Hydrogels for Soft Machines. This project aims to develop new bioinspired hydrogels capable of performing life-like functions. It expects to generate new knowledge in the area of advanced polymers for soft robotics using an interdisciplinary approach, combining chemical design, micro-nano fabrication and additive manufacturing. Expected outcomes of this project include new macromolecular design concepts to achieve intelligent hydrogels with sophisticated functions enabling the integration of high-performance artificial muscles and soft robotics. This should provide significant benefits in strengthening Australia’s competitiveness in manufacturing soft machines with much safer human-machine interactions and being able to be operated in diverse dynamic environments.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0912 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Zhen Jiang

Donkey Politics: How China’s Belt & Road shapes everyday life in Pakistan. This project will develop a socio-cultural understanding of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), through an ethnographic examination of the donkey trade with China. The research will produce fine-grained data on the impacts of the massive export of donkeys on the work, livelihoods, and health-seeking behaviour of marginalised populations in Pakistan. Expected outcomes include enhanced understanding of Chinese mega projects on host countries. It will benefit Australian and international policymakers seeking to develop a grounded understanding of BRI and its broader implications for the Indo-Pacific region, including the risk of zoonotic diseases associated with animal trade.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 1601 - Anthropology. Lead: A/Prof Muhammad Kavesh

Inside Others: Early Christian Protagonists and their Impairments. This project aims to uncover how disability functions in the portraits of key early Christian figures and their receptions over time. Its innovative approach combines disability studies, emotions studies, literary criticism, social history, and reception studies. It expects to generate new knowledge by intervening in disability readings of late antique literature, introducing a new category of impaired protagonists and constructing the first reception history of disability in early Christianity. It intends to enhance Australia’s capacity in interdisciplinary studies of antiquity and contribute to critical reflection on the nature of impairment in light of urgent questions arising from the Disability Royal Commission and Covid-19 measures.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 2204 - Religion and Religious Studies. Lead: A/Prof Kylie Crabbe

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from Australian farm dams. There is an untapped potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from millions of Australian farm dams. This project aims to quantify the nation-wide carbon footprint of farm dams and develop low-cost strategies for “greener” practices. Contributing to Australia’s commitment to tackle climate change, this project aspires to empower farmers to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of their farm dams. It will also inform on the economic viability of alternative management strategies for mitigating farm dam emissions and provide recommendations for financial incentives. This project should enhance the capacity of Australia to meet its carbon reduction targets and mitigate anthropogenic climate change.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management. Lead: Dr Martino Edoardo Malerba

Efficient privacy-preserving proofs for secure e-government and e-voting. Electronic systems are becoming increasingly widespread and crucial to social and economic wellbeing. This project aims to ensure that e-government, e-health, e-commerce and e-voting are secure and trustworthy by inventing new ways to verify these systems without infringing privacy. This project expects to use innovative techniques from cryptography to support development of trustworthy systems. Expected outcomes of this project include better support for organisations to build trustworthy systems that will maximise benefit to Australian business and society. This should provide significant commercial, reputational, and societal benefits by avoiding disruptions to the organisations and their clients if and when they are attacked. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0803 - Computer Software. Lead: Dr Thomas Haines

Life without Birth: The Ethics, Politics, and Law of Artificial Wombs. This project aims to assess the morality of ectogenesis, the process of gestating a foetus in an artificial womb. Recent technological advances in non-human ectogenesis raise the question of whether it is desirable to pursue research in human ectogenesis. This project expects to generate new knowledge in social philosophy by inquiring into the value of natural gestation, the foundations of parenthood, and the interests of foetuses during gestation. Expected outcomes of this project include an improved understanding of the costs, risks, and benefits of ectogenesis. This should provide significant benefits, such as resources for ethical decision-making in light of technologies aimed at radically reshaping the process of human creation. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 2203 - Philosophy. Lead: A/Prof Luara Ferracioli

No place like home? A phenomenology of racialised non-belonging. Racism is a persistent problem in Australian society, yet its existential effects remain inadequately understood. This project aims to develop a new understanding of racism’s deep impact on one’s sense of self, and sense of place. The project seeks to use the emerging framework of critical phenomenology to illuminate different experiences of racialised non-belonging. Expected outcomes include an improved understanding of the ontological significance of feeling not at home in one’s environs, or in one’s own body. This expanded understanding will provide significant benefits by helping to motivate and guide more robust models of anti-racism in public life, leading to a more racially just society.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 2203 - Philosophy. Lead: Dr Helen Ngo

Impact of seaweed polyphenols on gut health: Gut microbiome modulation. This project aims to understand the true impact of seaweed polyphenols on the gut microbiome and develop methods to improve their bioavailability, bioaccessibility and bioactivities in the gut. The project's use of cutting-edge analytical tools helps to investigate the movement and absorption of phenolic compounds across the gut. This project expects to explore new knowledge in the area of marine-based functional foods and their health benefits using an innovative interdisciplinary approach. The success of this project will ultimately provide a new pathway for the development of functional foods that will help to improve the health status of Australians by consuming healthy food ingredients.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0908 - Food Sciences. Lead: A/Prof Hafiz Ansar Rasul Suleria

Re-imagining Humanities through Indigenous Creative Arts. This project will develop an Indigenous Creative Arts Framework to reimagine and transform the Humanities across Australian Universities. It will engage Indigenous creative arts academics, scholars, curators, practitioners and communities to conceptualise new innovations in teaching, research, community engagement and ethics. This project will centre critical Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing; contribute new Indigenous research methodologies and restorative practices; and reframe knowledge through creative arts praxis. Such innovative and dynamic advances in research will recognise and grow Indigenous capacity building across the Humanities, as vital to cultural wellbeing for all Australians. . Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 2002 - Cultural Studies. Lead: A/Prof Ali Baker

Making Australia resilient to airborne infection transmission. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that basic questions regarding how to minimise the risk of airborne infection transmission for any respiratory viruses remain unanswered, despite their frequency and huge social and economic costs. Therefore, this project aims to expand scientific knowledge and develop practical tools to improve the resilience of Australian indoor environments against airborne transmission of respiratory viruses. The outcomes of the project conducted by a multidisciplinary international team of collaborators will include: (i) quantitative knowledge on virus-laden aerosols from human expiration; and (ii) exposure and infection risk models and their application to typical indoor building and transport scenarios.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1117 - Public Health and Health Services. Lead: Prof Lidia Morawska

Discovering the origin of gravitational waves. This project aims to discover the astrophysical origin of gravitational waves. This project expects to calculate the properties of neutron stars and black holes in binaries, using state-of-the-art simulations performed on the largest Australian supercomputers. Expected outcomes of this project include comparisons between gravitational-wave observations and theory using advanced statistical and machine learning techniques, providing new and unique insights into the most massive stars in the Universe. This project should provide significant benefits such as answering key questions about the Universe, cementing Australia's place in the international astronomical community and inspiring and training future generations of Australia's workforce.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0201 - Astronomical and Space Sciences. Lead: Dr Simon Stevenson

Engineering safer pastures for livestock. This project aims to develop subterranean clover with elevated condensed tannins in leaves. This important pasture legume is currently a bloat risk for cattle and sheep due to low condensed tannins and high soluble proteins. Bloat is a health issue that costs the Australian and New Zealand livestock industries over $200 million per annum. Condensed tannins can reduce bloat, decrease methane production and improve efficiency of production. A novel approach using CRISPR and other innovative molecular techniques will generate breeding lines high in condensed tannins and deliver knowledge applicable to other pasture legumes. Expected outcomes for livestock producers include improved animal welfare, reduced carbon emissions and enhanced profits.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1001 - Agricultural Biotechnology. Lead: Prof Jacqueline Batley

Sustaining intensive agriculture through droughts and floods. This project aims to develop state-of-the-art conceptual and numerical models of river-soil-groundwater interactions to address complex and persistent questions on water sustainability in the Lower Burdekin Delta, Queensland, where groundwater pumping to irrigate sugarcane has been supplemented by artificial recharge for over 50 years. This project expects to deliver new knowledge of critical aquifer processes to inform the scheme operation, the largest in the country. Expected outcomes include ground-breaking management plans for the aquifer-replenishment scheme. Anticipated benefits involve balancing the needs of agriculture and the protection of pristine environments, including groundwater discharge to the Great Barrier Reef. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0406 - Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience. Lead: Prof Adrian Werner

Reducing self-harm and suicidal behaviours in young people in WA. Aims: reduce self-harm and suicidal behaviours in young people by upskilling teachers and providing resources to respond rapidly to students at risk via an innovative intervention with near real-time measures of changes in vulnerability. Significance: self-harm and suicidal behaviours are increasing at alarming rates in young people. Schools are ideally placed to respond but many struggle to do so. New regular measures and advanced machine learning algorithms measuring change in risk in real time will enable schools to respond in a timely and effective manner and save lives. Expected outcomes: a new intervention to reduce self-harm and suicidal behaviours in young people that measures fluctuations in risk via a Temporal Vulnerability Index.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1117 - Public Health and Health Services. Lead: Prof Andrew Page

Constructing a rich curriculum for all: ‘Insights into practice’ . Not all students in Australia have access to the same high quality curriculum. The curriculum is often differentiated in ways designed to make outcomes achievable for marginalised young people. While this is often well meant, it has worked against the interests of these young people by denying them from a young age the same levels of access to curriculum options as their peers. This narrows the range of their future opportunities. This project aims to provide the foundations for strategies that can be implemented by teachers, schools and systems to address this problem. This projects works closely with teachers to determine a framework that can encourage pedagogical approaches that make a rich curriculum accessible to all. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1302 - Curriculum and Pedagogy. Lead: Prof Martin Mills