Grants & Opportunities

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

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

Investigating the responses of Australian native bees to climatic warming. This project aims to investigate changes to native bee cognition, morphology, and pollination capability in response to climatic warming. Using emerging experimental methods for behavioural testing and state-of-the-art 3D modelling of museum specimens, the project expects to identify which species are likely to experience change under future climate scenarios. This project expects to determine if increased temperatures cause pollination deficits through impaired bee cognition and changed morphology. The knowledge gained in this project will allow us to identify vulnerable species and develop strategies across agriculture, government, and community sectors to support pollination and inform conservation priorities.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3109 - Zoology. Lead: Dr Scarlett Howard

Smart materials for atmospheric water management and water harvesting. Fresh water is a scarce resource in many parts of the globe but uncomfortably over-supplied in other regions. Dehumidifying machines, such as air conditioners, are extensively used in humid climates to enhance human comfort, but with great energy costs. Likewise, the production of potable water in remote dry regions is energy intensive. We propose novel hyper-absorbent desiccating polymers combined into sorption-powered engines inspired by nastic movements in plants to develop extremely efficient dehumidifiers and water harvesting machines. These polymer actuators can help address the auto-acceleration of climate change caused by the increasing use of air conditioners and provide cheap, clean water for remote communities.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Prof Geoffrey Spinks

Reading climate: Indigenous literatures, school English and sustainablity. Reading Climate aims to investigate the connections between sustainability and Indigenous knowledge in the context of school English and directly responds to imperatives for climate education and racial justice in Australian schools. It links teachers, students, authors and scholars through book clubs, exploring the potential of literature as an interdisciplinary site for knowledge building and for reimagining social and environmental futures. With partners the Stella Prize, the Australian Association for the Teaching of English, Feral Arts and VoicEd Radio, the project will develop strong collaborations between literary education, industry, and Indigenous writing, producing an open access digital resource for use in schools nationally. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 3901 - Curriculum and Pedagogy. Lead: Prof Larissa McLean Davies

Modern mathematics to unravel the birth of coherence in dynamical systems. This project aims to reveal the precise mathematical mechanisms underlying the emergence and disappearance of long-lived coherent features in dynamical systems. This project expects to generate new fundamental mathematics in the area of dynamical systems, using innovative operator-theoretic approaches to carefully tease apart the lifecycles of coherent structures. The expected outcomes of this project include new mathematical theory and computational algorithms to anticipate the genesis and destruction of coherent objects, which are key organisers of complex geophysical flows. This breakthrough mathematics should provide significant benefits, such as improved prediction of eddy transport and persistence of weather and climate patterns.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0102 - Applied Mathematics. Lead: Prof Gary Froyland

Protecting prey from predators using sensory tactics. This project aims to develop new approaches to prevent the extinction of threatened native species from invasive predators, such as rats, pigs, cats and foxes. Many native species are hard to see but vulnerable to being found by predators with powerful senses of smell and hearing. By harnessing the sensory cues of prey that predators use when hunting, this project expects to discover olfactory and auditory techniques that prevent predators finding threatened species. In doing so, the project intends to provide new perspectives on how animals find food using multiple senses, and lead the recovery of threatened species in areas where predators remain within Australia and globally. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management. Lead: Dr Catherine Price

Novel governance for marine ecosystems in rapid transition. This project will develop the governance knowledge required to manage rapidly changing marine ecosystems. Australia has the third largest marine estate globally, and its ecosystems support critical economic and sociocultural values. However, human pressures are tipping marine ecosystems into alternate states, inspiring new interventions to sustain industries and communities. New interventions necessitate transitions in governance. Expected outcomes include a comparative understanding of novel marine interventions now underway globally, and practical guidance on how to diagnose and implement responsible marine governance. Significant benefits include enhanced governance and sustainability of Australian and international marine ecosystems.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management. Lead: Prof Tiffany Morrison

Impacts of diet on the brain, body, and microbiome. Dietary habits determine cognitive function, metabolism and the composition of the gut microbiome. This project seeks to clarify the role of the gut microbiome in diet-induced changes to cognition. It aims to do so through longitudinal studies of cognitive function in which dietary patterns are systematically varied, and intervention studies where cognition is tested after experimentally manipulating the gut microbiome. Expected outcomes include new interdisciplinary knowledge spanning psychology, neuroscience, nutrition and metabolism. This project is timely given the enormous shifts in Australian dietary choices. The knowledge to be gained should provide benefits to individual and public health, agriculture, and food systems.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1701 - Psychology. Lead: Dr Michael Kendig

Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Agriculture: Social and ethical issues. This project aims to investigate the social and ethical issues raised by the use of artificial intelligence and robotics in agriculture. By combining social science research methods and philosophical analysis, the project aims to generate new knowledge in bioethics and applied ethics. Expected outcomes of this project include an account of the social and ethical issues farmers, rural communities, and consumers anticipate arising from these technologies, improved understanding of these issues, and an account of how these groups would like to see these issues addressed. This should help Australia benefit from the responsible use of artificial intelligence and robotics in agriculture.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 2201 - Applied Ethics. Lead: Prof Robert Sparrow

Is there a climatic tipping point for Antarctic Bottom Water formation? Antarctic Bottom Water plays an important role in global ocean circulation and climate and yet its formation is also highly sensitive to climate change. This project will analyse new seafloor, core and water samples from the understudied Cape Darnley, East Antarctica, collected on a voyage in early 2022. This new data will be used in combination with an improved high resolution regional ocean model, to understand modern and past Antarctic Bottom Water formation under different climate states (warmer and colder than present), to determine if there are climate tipping points for the shut down of Antarctic Bottom Water formation. The anticipated benefits include a better understanding of future climate change on this important water mass.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0405 - Oceanography. Lead: Prof Helen Bostock

Using the last glacial cycle to understand carbon-climate feedbacks . This project aims to investigate how the ocean’s carbon cycle will respond to anthropogenic climate change by examining its response to past climate variability. The project expects to generate new records of the dust feedback cycle and the microbial decomposition feedback cycle in the poorly studied Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Expected outcomes include new datasets to test climate models, and a new method to detect temperature-driven changes in microbial decomposition. This should lead to significant benefits including more accurate estimates of how much carbon humanity can safely emit, and the science to inform whether Australia should adopt ocean fertilisation as a strategy to combat climate change. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0406 - Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience. Lead: Prof Zanna Chase

Some like it hot: invasive species, hybridisation, and a warming world. Temperatures are rising and invasive species are becoming more prevalent. This project aims to understand how climate change and hybridisation between exotic and native marine species leads to rapid adaptation. Using integrative approaches from genomics and physiology and focusing on Australian blue mussels, this proposal will test leading hypotheses about how climate change and hybridisation can enable rapid adaptation and the spread of exotic species. Outcomes will include strategies for minimising impacts of invasive mussels and boosting warm-temperature adaptation in aquaculture mussels and restored shellfish reefs. This project will yield fundamental insights into how marine species can quickly adapt to warming seas.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0604 - Genetics. Lead: Prof Cynthia Riginos

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

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

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

Efficient and selective water electrolysis for clean energy and environment. This project aims to develop an anion exchange membrane electrolysis cell for efficient co-generation of hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide from the splitting of water by coupling the hydrogen evolution reaction with a selective, two-electron water oxidation reaction catalysed by cost-effective, perovskite materials. This project expects to generate new knowledge in understanding the selective water electrolysis and in developing efficient energy conversion technologies. This project is expected to improve the utilisation of renewable energy and promote development of manufacturing and chemical industries in Australia. This should provide significant benefits to achieve energy safety and environmental sustainability for Australia.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Prof Dr Zongping Shao

All-Optical Upgrade to the Adelaide Atom Trap Trace Analysis Facility. This LIEF will upgrade the University of Adelaide Atom Trap Trace Analysis facility with a state-of-the-art analysis system that incorporates new all-optical methods. The system will provide ultrasensitive measurement of trace argon and krypton gas for groundwater dating. The project addresses a global demand for measurements by increasing the capacity at the Adelaide facility and enables new applications through analysis of smaller sample volumes. It will benefit the Australian environmental and earth sciences by providing unique datasets, generating new knowledge into the flow and transport mechanisms of groundwater systems. It will address national water security and sustainability goals, and support growth of population and industry. . Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 3707 - Hydrology. Lead: Prof Andre Luiten

This funding round supports strategic investment in initiatives that contribute to the strength, sustainability and vitality of the arts and cultural sector in NSW.

Provides grants to charities across causes like mental health, social inclusion, food security, and environmental sustainability.

Up to $5,500 for casket, transport, flowers, funeral director fees and site preparation, plus up to $500 for feasting food for Traditional Owners and their partners

This program aims to support regional waste groups to undertake education activities to reduce the hazards associated with the disposal of a range of potentially harmful products used in households which cannot be disposed of in kerbside bins.

This grant funds a single statewide provider to help older people in supported accommodation understand and exercise their rights through free, independent information, advice, advocacy and education.

Mental Health Research Grants support researchers working on new and emerging treatment approaches for severe and persistent mental illness, with a focus on basic science and pre-clinical research.

Support social enterprises to purchase capability building services to be more efficient and effective in delivering social benefits to vulnerable Australians. Strong representation from First Nations enterprises