Grants & Opportunities

The role of song in Kaytetye and Warlpiri biocultural knowledge. This project aims to integrate Indigenous Ecological Knowledge with Indigenous ceremonial knowledge in two central Australian Aboriginal languages: Kaytetye and Warlpiri. With a multidisciplinary team and by building on existing lexical and musical corpora, the project expects to produce the first biocultural monographs. Identification of biota and human uses of them will be expanded with their song, site of origin and kinship affiliation; thus advancing knowledge of how societies interact with the natural world and the role of music in retaining knowledge. Expected benefits of this project are greater intergenerational transfer of Indigenous biocultural knowledge through working on country and enhanced Indigenous capacity. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1904 - Performing Arts and Creative Writing. Lead: Prof Myfany Turpin

Advancing investor action on energy transition. This project aims to advance action by investors (debt and equity) to increase finance for low-carbon energy sources that reduce fundamental climate risks. The project applies interdisciplinary approaches to generate new knowledge about the business case for investor leadership on energy transition and supportive climate law and financial regulatory frameworks. Collaborative legal and business analysis by leading Australian and US scholars, coupled with interviews and focus groups with investors, will examine contemporary engagement practices and investors' management of climate-related financial risks. Expected outcomes are targeted reform proposals to benefit policymakers and the environment by fostering private financing of clean energy.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1801 - Law. Lead: Prof Jacqueline Peel

Lifting the burden of imprisonment: Creating safer and stronger communities. This project aims to identify how a reduction in imprisonment rates could benefit Australian communities and enhance their safety and wellbeing. It will link a range of statistical data sources on imprisonment, crime and community wellbeing. We will, for the first time, comprehensively demonstrate the impact of imprisonment on individuals and communities in Australia and beyond. Expected outcomes of this project include expansion and innovation of coercive mobility theory, novel integration of data, and a forecasting tool to assess the impact of imprisonment reduction on communities. This evidence will assist advocacy groups and policy makers seeking to address Australia’s burgeoning imprisonment rate.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1602 - Criminology. Lead: Dr Kirsten Besemer

The future of shipping: achieving autonomous navigation. This project aims to develop autonomous decision systems and onshore control stations to support the design and operation of unmanned cargo ships. Blending observations, numerical models, virtual reality and machine learning, the project will develop algorithms for unsupervised navigation and embed these in an advanced ship simulator platform capable of responding to environmental conditions and optimising sea freight transport capabilities. The expected outcomes will enable the integration of automated controls in ships, including remote-control capabilities. This will support Australia’s transition towards an autonomous shipping industry, delivering greater reliability, efficiency, productivity and safety.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0911 - Maritime Engineering. Lead: Prof Alessandro Toffoli

Developing a novel carbon negative fertiliser . Food security is vital to support our growing population. However, our increasing reliance on intensive farming systems necessitates increased fertiliser use, leading to increased water pollution and soil degradation - threatening both the Australian environment and food security. Increasing carbon storage capacity by soil and decreasing fertiliser use are two of the primary pathways for restoring the bio-support capacity of soils and reducing farming footprints. This innovative and first-of-its-kind project aims to develop a cost-effective, carbon negative fertiliser that reduces fertiliser inputs and increases soil carbon storage. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0503 - Soil Sciences. Lead: A/Prof Shahla Hosseini Bai

Living with Urban Heat: Becoming Climate-Ready in Social Housing . This project aims to address liveability in rapidly warming cities by focusing on the role that social practice plays in complementing technical and infrastructural cooling solutions. This project expects to generate new knowledge about equitable heat adaptive practices. It does so by working with culturally diverse social housing residents using an innovative blend of participatory action research and transition design. Expected outcomes of this project include practical, low-cost cooling strategies that can be implemented now, along with increased social input into planning for the hotter urban future. This should provide significant benefits, such as enhanced civic capacity to generate society-wide climate readiness. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1604 - Human Geography. Lead: A/Prof Stephen Healy

Remote sensing techniques to infer fine-scale ocean surface currents. This project aims to develop new technology for measuring ocean surface currents at unprecedented fine resolution using aerial imagery and theory that describes how surface waves are refracted by currents. The project will generate new knowledge on ocean surface current processes and variability across a range of scales, and critically, improve our understanding of surface current uncertainty through application of advanced statistical analysis techniques. The outcomes of this project will deliver Australian capability to leverage the enhanced spatial and temporal resolution of next generation Earth observations to directly benefit search and rescue, offshore industry operations, defence, and pollution response in Australian waters.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0405 - Oceanography. Lead: Dr Matthew Rayson

Developing a wildlife health intelligence and vaccine distribution system. This project aims to establish an industry-linked pipeline for vaccines to be delivered to animals in edible baits and a near real-time monitoring system for assessing the impact of management actions. This project will develop ultrasensitive diagnostic tests and incorporate biomarkers into baits from Australia's leading pest animal control company. Bait uptake and disease status in the field will be monitored using artificial intelligence technology developed in Tasmania. This integrated wildlife health intelligence and scalable vaccine platform can help protect the iconic Tasmanian devil from disease and increase Australia's preparedness for looming threats to the livestock industry such as African swine fever.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0707 - Veterinary Sciences. Lead: A/Prof Andrew Flies

Improving outcomes for young people transitioning from out-of-home care. The central aim of this project is to generate the new knowledge needed to support the development, implementation, and diffusion of evidence-based innovations for young people as they transition from out-of-home care to adulthood. The project is significant because young people living in out-of-home care are more likely to enter juvenile justice, become a teenage parent, be socially excluded, have mental and physical health problems and addictions. Outcomes include a world first longitudinal data evidence base, exemplars of best practice, and guidance to advance the application of transition pathways and plans to inform future innovations in Victoria and across Australia for improving transition from care with, by, and for young people. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1117 - Public Health and Health Services. Lead: Prof Helen Skouteris

Chimeric molecules for precision protein modification. This project aims to address fundamental questions on how natural modifications of proteins cause functional changes inside cells. The project expects to generate new knowledge in the areas of organic chemistry and chemical biology through the development of a synthetic platform for the discovery of a novel class of chimeric molecules that can trigger precise modifications of proteins. Expected outcomes include a detailed understanding of how specific modifications modulate protein and cellular function. Significant benefits of this interdisciplinary project include access to a new class of molecules for basic research that may also find use for cell engineering applications within the growing biotechnology sector in Australia.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3404 - Medicinal and Biomolecular Chemistry. Lead: Dr Xuyu Liu

Addressing the Crisis of Local Visual News in Regional and Remote Australia. This project aims to measure the volume and quality of visual content on regional news platforms by diverse publishers in eight key geographic areas. It is the first in Australia to examine the full cycle from production through presentation to consumption for local visual news in a regional context. Expected project outcomes include enhanced relationships between journalists and communities, stronger regional news ecosystems, and a more representative local visual news product. These outcomes boost the academic understanding of an understudied area, help regional Australia, including regional Indigenous Australia, see itself in the journalism that is produced in the regions, and provide commercial benefits to hard-hit news providers.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4701 - Communication and Media Studies. Lead: Dr T.J. Thomson

Using metacognitive self-evaluation to improve knowledge transfer. The knowledge and skills developed in the classroom often do not transfer to the workplace or even to other subjects at school. This project aims to evaluate how the transfer of knowledge can be enhanced by prompting students to evaluate and reflect on their performance in specific ways. The project will identify how different students respond to self-evaluation and how self-evaluation can most effectively be designed and applied in the classroom. Newly developed self-evaluation prompts will be implemented in a computerised and adaptive way so that self-evaluation is tailored to a particular student. This project should provide a scalable and cost-effective way to help students apply what they learn in a more flexible and efficient way. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5201 - Applied and Developmental Psychology. Lead: Dr Kit Double

Understanding drivers and deterrents of Australia's illicit tobacco market. As Australia implements policies that reduce the availability and affordability of tobacco, demand for illicit tobacco is likely to grow. This research aims to generate new knowledge about the drivers and deterrents of demand for illicit tobacco through three inter-related projects. Expected outcomes include a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing Australians’ demand for illicit tobacco, and expert-informed policy recommendations to reduce demand for and deter use of illicit tobacco. With no substantive Australian research on this topic for more than 15 years, this research will be essential to reduce the impacts of the illicit tobacco market, including substantial losses in tax revenue and the funding of organised crime.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4407 - Policy and Administration. Lead: Dr Cheneal Puljevic

Detecting Key Concepts from Low-Quality Data for Better Decision. The project aims to develop data analytics techniques that aid better decision making in high-stake scenarios when data are less-trustable. While data-aided decision making has been widely used, less-trustable data may significantly distort the decisions made and hurt people impacted by these decisions. The outcome of this project expects to be a series of techniques covering data understanding and enhancement, model development and fitting, and novelty detection, to reduce the damage of less-trustable data. The research expects to benefit the people and companies impacted by data-aided decision making in cybersecurity, healthcare and financial fraud detection, providing risk-control services.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4605 - Data Management and Data Science. Lead: Dr Miao Xu

Scalable and Lightweight On-Device Recommender Systems. This project aims to address the resource-intensive and non-resilient nature of existing cloud-based personalised recommendation services. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the intersection of on-device machine learning and recommender systems. The expected outcomes include a novel auto-deployment platform that can efficiently customise a model for each user device's configuration, supporting on-device recommendation and model updates with tiny computational footprints. The benefits of these outcomes will position Australia at the forefront of AI and give numerous businesses the tools needed to deploy innovative business systems with a secure and cost-effective advantage.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4605 - Data Management and Data Science. Lead: Dr Tong Chen

The prevalence and impact of digital alcohol exposure. This project aims to use artificial intelligence to quantify the amount of alcohol people are exposed to in digital media (e.g., social media, streaming videos) in their daily lives and the effect alcohol exposure has on alcohol use. Expected outcomes for this project include a quantification of the amount of alcohol exposure in digital media and the impact it has on drinking and a development of a protocol to test exposure. Significant benefits are expected for policy makers aiming to reduce exposure and the public wanting to avoid exposure to limit the harm of alcohol. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5201 - Applied and Developmental Psychology. Lead: Dr Benjamin Riordan

Re-igniting 'artistic vibrancy' in the Australian opera ecosystem. This project aims to advance new methodologies for re-establishing 'artistic vibrancy' (a factor found to be lacking by the National Opera Review in 2014-16) within operatic practice in Australia. The project expects to generate new knowledge of vital, but hidden musical processes, using interdisciplinary approaches in order to rebalance and recalibrate the opera ecosystem. Expected outcomes include the revitalisation of operatic practice and the establishment of clear parameters for responsible opera curation. Benefits include an enhanced awareness of artistic vibrancy within opera, and the creation of new practices, which will be of significant cultural and artistic benefit to the wider Australian community.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3603 - Music. Lead: Dr Stephen Mould

Measuring and predicting sea spray spume droplets in the field. Sea spray spume droplets modulate heat and moisture fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere. These fluxes are a major source of uncertainty in extreme weather forecasting models due to a lack of reliable field measurement techniques. This project aims to develop a novel measurement technique to measure sea spray and generate new knowledge on the magnitude and nature of sea spray spume production. Expected outcomes include novel tools, a baseline dataset of sea spray field observations and predictive capabilities. Providing critical information to forecast extreme weather and tropical cyclones, this research will improve accuracy of coastal weather hazard prediction providing many social and economic benefits for Australia and other nations.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4015 - Maritime Engineering. Lead: Dr Joey Voermans

Catalyst design for converting carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals. This project aims to use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas that drives global climate change, into valuable chemicals via catalytic reduction. This project expects to facilitate the selective production of valuable ethylene from carbon dioxide reduction by developing novel cocatalyst materials derived from metal-oxo cluster molecules. Expected outcomes include fundamental understanding of the structure-property relationship in new catalytic systems, and technological breakthroughs in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The success of this project will bring significant environmental and economic benefits, and position Australia at the frontier of global transition to a low-carbon economy.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Haijiao Lu

Quantum sensing of magnetism in two dimensions. This project aims to use innovative quantum sensing technologies to investigate the novel emerging field of two-dimensional magnetism; imaging both static and dynamic forms of 2D magnetism. This project expects to generate new knowledge about magnetic van der Waals materials and their potential application to ultra-thin electronic and spintronic devices. Expected outcomes of this project are a deeper understanding of the formation and modulation of magnetic order in 2D, new fabrication methods for deliberate domain wall formation, production of near-zero energy gap spin-waves, and new encapsulation methods for ultra-stable 2D materials. This should provide significant benefits towards fundamental physics and future device engineering. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5104 - Condensed Matter Physics. Lead: Dr David Broadway

Glassy metal-organic framework membranes for CO2 separation and conversion. This project aims to develop a new class of glassy metal-organic framework (MOF) membranes for CO2 separation and conversion. By constructing membrane reactors, it is expected to simultaneously separate CO2 from gas mixture and subsequently convert it into value-added chemicals in a continuous single operating unit. The expected outcomes include fabrication techniques for ultrathin MOF glass membranes, cutting-edge knowledge in advanced MOF membrane design, a new generation of MOF devices, and efficient membrane reactors for CO2 conversion with mixed gas feed. This project expects to accelerate the development of low-carbon technologies and provide significant benefits in mitigating the adverse effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4004 - Chemical Engineering. Lead: Dr Rijia Lin

Illuminating the function and evolution of iridescence. This project seeks to reveal how dynamic colour signals enable effective communication by connecting the production, transmission, and perception of visual information through space and time. By integrating innovative analyses of behaviour, physiology, and optics, it will offer original insight into how information is encoded and fluidly exchanged under real-world conditions, and produce new tools for interrogating the subjective visual world of animals. This work promises benefits to our understanding of how the universal process of communication drives adaptation amidst environmental change, with significant scope for bio-inspired solutions to contemporary problems of vision and efficient information processing, including among humans.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3104 - Evolutionary Biology. Lead: Dr Thomas White

Anisotropic single-particle transducers. The project aims to tackle a major challenge in techniques that manipulate tiny particles – increasing the performance of transducer devices that convert magnetic forces to mechanical movement. It will centre on interactions on the surface of particular particles, bypassing a known scientific limit. Expected outcomes include a fundamental understanding of key factors that have recently been shown to enhance magnetic responsivity and efficient mechanical manipulation and sensing in a magnetic field. The project outcomes will benefit developers by, for example, advanced nanoscale devices for robotics, sensing and molecular bioassays; controlling biophysical processes; and fundamental mechanobiology research.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4018 - Nanotechnology. Lead: Dr Gungun Lin

Signs on Screen: Language, Culture and Power in Sign Language Cinema. This project aims to discover how contemporary screens represent deafness and how sign language cinema filters Deaf and non-ableist perspectives. Partnering with Deaf Connect and the National Film and Sound Archive, this project expects to provide a transnational, transdisciplinary framework for analysing Deaf language and culture on screen in terms of completeness and empowerment. Expected outcomes include capacity building for emerging Deaf scholars, inclusive innovations in film and language studies and new opportunities for Deaf/hearing dialogue and cohesion. This should lead to diverse benefits such as increased Deaf wellbeing and enhanced capacity to harness screen cultures to support and reflect the diversity of Deaf experience.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4702 - Cultural Studies. Lead: Dr Gemma King

Navigating Uncertainty & Evidence: Teaching for Epistemic Cognition. We are facing an epistemological crisis, grounded in changing technologies, fake news, and a distrust of experts. Developing capability to navigate uncertainty, disagreement, and evidence is one of the most pressing social issues of our time in order to develop a sustainable society, ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Despite relevant research, little is known about the crucial practices of educators in supporting learning towards these capabilities. This project will bring classroom practice and a practical theory of epistemic cognition into synchrony, developing new knowledge and strategies for students to learn how to navigate uncertainty, disagreement, and evidence.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3904 - Specialist Studies In Education. Lead: A/Prof Simon Knight