Grants & Opportunities

Using assisted evolution to win the war against invasive species. Invasive species disrupt ecosystem functioning, causing severe economic costs. This project investigates the use of native insects, alongside assisted evolution, as a novel approach to control invasive plants. Combining experimental and observational data we aim to accelerate adaptation already underway and entrained by selection from interactions between invasive plants and Australian insects. These data will not only address unresolved questions in evolutionary biology but will also provide knowledge on the role native insects can play in the biocontrol of invasive weeds. This will be crucial for conservation managers and agricultural practitioners dealing with plant movement and/or crop development under ongoing environmental change.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0501 - Ecological Applications. Lead: Prof Johannes Le Roux

SenShaMart: A Trusted Internet of Things Marketplace for Sensor Sharing. This project aims to devise a novel Internet of Things (IoT) sensor sharing marketplace that permits IoT applications to discover, integrate, and pay for any IoT sensor data that is made available by other parties. The project will devise highly-scalable sensor classification, query processing, and transactions solutions and incorporate them in a pair of novel blockchains that work in tandem to securely manage all the information and contracts needed by IoT applications to discover, integrate, pay, and use sensors provided by another parties. These IoT advancements will provide significant economic, environmental, and social benefits via making low-cost and immediate sensing available across the world.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0805 - Distributed Computing. Lead: Prof Dimitrios Georgakopoulos

Laser-free on-chip super-resolution microscopy. The project aims to develop a compact, cost-effective on-chip super-resolution microscope through an innovative combination of imaging algorithms, optics and integrated photonics. This project addresses limitations in imaging algorithms that increase laser system complexity and constrain imaging speed and applications, as well as nanostructure fabrication issues. Expected outcomes include the discovery of emitter self-interference microscopy, new knowledge in imaging, photonics and biophysics, the world’s fastest super-resolution technology, compact on-chip nanoscopy that can be added to existing technology and proof of concept in three areas. Benefits are anticipated in commercialisation, improved photonics devices and usage in biophysics.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1007 - Nanotechnology. Lead: Prof Lan Fu

An active ion transport pathway exploited by coronaviruses. Cells have active transport “pumps” that are regulators of a variety of cellular processes. This project aims to understand how a specific ion pump is exploited by coronaviruses when they infect animal cells. These studies will provide new mechanistic insights into how coronaviruses alter calcium signalling in cells and how a specific ion pump regulates a variety of key processes during coronavirus infection. This work will greatly enhance our understanding of the intersection between ion pumps and viruses.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0601 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Prof Gregory Monteith

Shallow water carbonate sediment dissolution in the global carbon cycle. Carbonate sediment dissolution is a globally significant process, but poorly understood in shallow marine waters. This project will determine whether the combined effect of organic matter, ocean acidification and pore water flow in shallow water carbonate sediments increases the release of calcium and alkalinity to the ocean. This project is significant because this release has not previously been accounted for and may lead to an additional uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide into the global ocean, maybe some additional buffering against ocean acidification, but unfortunately, maybe also a loss of carbonate ecosystems. The outcomes of this project will make a significant contribution to our understanding of the global carbon cycle. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0402 - Geochemistry. Lead: Prof Bradley Eyre

Nano optoelectronic coupling: towards an ultrasensitive sensing technology. This project aims to elucidate ultrasensitive mechanical and thermal sensing effects that are tens of thousands of times better than conventional sensing technologies. This is achieved through controlling interactions between photons and electrons at the interface of two semiconductors. Outcomes of this project include scientific breakthroughs that are expected to revolutionise and disrupt the established sensing technologies. Microscopic low power mechanical and thermal sensors with ultra-high sensitivity have great value to enhance safety, security, and productivity of industry and society. The project is expected to generate new knowledge and place Australia as the world leader in physical sensing and create a new industry.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0913 - Mechanical Engineering. Lead: Prof Dzung Dao

Topological stability from spectral analysis. The aim is to use mathematical scattering theory to find and study new topological features of the spectra of linear transformations on Hilbert space. The significance derives from mathematical models of low temperature conducting quantum materials. These have revealed `topological phases of matter' that are stable with respect to a range of variations in the parameters that determine the system. The stability is desired for applications to quantum devices. Our results will give topological stability from the scattering spectrum, a feature not previously seen. The benefits stem from new results in mathematical scattering theory with a primary novelty being the analysis of ``zero energy resonances'' in mathematical models of graphene.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0101 - Pure Mathematics. Lead: Prof Adam Rennie

The Great Barrier Reef in 2100. Our research aims to answer fundamental geomorphic questions about the future of coral reefs, focusing on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). We will develop cutting-edge, fully open-source numerical models to quantify the eco-morphodynamic evolution of the GBR under IPCC climate-change scenarios. Our geomorphic numerical models will consider biotic/abiotic feedbacks including synergistic effects of multiple stressors such as waves, temperature, acidification and sediment transport, at individual reef scales. We will model the future of the GBR’s ecosystem-services, allowing for a quantum leap in the geomorphic knowledge and understanding of coral reef ecosystems. Expected outcomes include a gamechanger tool for future management of the GBR.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0403 - Geology. Lead: Prof Ana Vila Concejo

Weight stigma in the preconception, pregnancy and postpartum periods. The overall aim of this project is to develop guidance for the translation of weight stigma evidence into preconception, pregnancy and postpartum obesity-related policy. It focuses on the socio-ecological factors that perpetuate weight stigma in women across the reproductive life phase, that is, in women planning a pregnancy, in women who are pregnant and in mothers who have given birth within a 24-month period. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1117 - Public Health and Health Services. Lead: Dr Briony Hill

Understanding macroeconomic fluctuations with unobserved networks. Whilst empirical evidence suggests that firm-level shocks can have large aggregate effects, via network connections, macroeconomic policies have mostly an aggregate nature. This project aims to build a new framework to disentangle aggregate shocks from shocks to individual units. The major innovations are i) to infer the network from the data and ii) to jointly estimate aggregate factors and network effects. Expected outcomes are i) measures of systemic risk and ii) a theoretical framework to study the optimality of aggregate versus sectoral stabilization policies. Benefits include a better understanding of macroeconomic fluctuations in Australia and proposed economic policies to mitigate large and persistent declines in employment and GDP.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1402 - Applied Economics. Lead: Prof Valentyn Panchenko

Democratisation of Deep Learning: Neural Architecture Search at Low Cost. The need to manually design Deep Learning-based Neural Networks (DNNs) limits their usage to AI experts and hinders the exploitation of their true potential more broadly, e.g., in farming, humanities. We aim to replace this tedious process through novel AI methods capable of generating DNNs that can perform significantly better and at a lower computational cost than manually designed DNNs. We further expand this idea to solve complex real-world problems with both labelled and unlabelled data found in various applications including energy and climate change. The expected outcomes include the novel AI methods, highly trained AI researchers and a number of critical applications that will bring significant benefits to Australia and the world.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0801 - Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing. Lead: Prof Saman Halgamuge

How inequalities affect attitudes and behaviours concerning sex and gender. This project addresses how economic inequalities—between and within the sexes—shape behaviour, gender sentiment, and violence both online and ‘in real life’. The research brings evolutionary understandings of sexual marketplaces together with the psychology of social behaviour, to shed new light on the origins of sexual conflict and harmful gender ideologies. This project integrates within-individual variation, careful experimental dissection of the sources of inequality, and the study of large-scale (among cities, among countries) patterns of behaviour on social media. A fuller understanding of how and why inequalities affect behaviour presents opportunities for improved social policy and responses to gendered violence and cyberhate.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1701 - Psychology. Lead: Prof Robert Brooks

Blockchain-Enabled Federated Learning for Secure and Decentralised Learning. This project aims to develop novel blockchain-enabled federated learning techniques for secure and decentralised learning. It addresses an important and urgent machine learning problem, that is, the data useful for training machine learning models are often held by different owners who are not willing to share their data due to privacy concerns, resulting in isolated data islands. The project will result in a set of innovative algorithms that provide solutions to the key challenges in blockchain-enabled federated learning. The expected outcomes of the project will dramatically advance the frontier of machine learning and blockchain research, and have massive social and economic benefits for Australia and international communities.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0805 - Distributed Computing. Lead: Prof Yong Xiang

Body, Language and Socialisation across Cultures. This project aims to advance the understanding of how people learn languages, and in the process become socialized into particular cultures and communities. To that end, it will bring together an international team of leading experts in the field, and focus in new ways on the interplay of speech and sign with other bodily forms of communication in a wide variety of cultures. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of multimodal communication and language socialization, and enhancement of Australian research capacity in these fields. This should lead to significant practical benefits, improving Australia's ability to adapt to cultural diversity and to counteract its disadvantages in schools and everyday life.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1601 - Anthropology. Lead: Em/Prof Alan Rumsey

Resolving the role of dryland flooding in the global carbon cycle. Aquatic sources of carbon dioxide and methane are globally significant, but unknown for flooded drylands. The aim of this project is to use an innovative combination of well-integrated methodologies to determine if flooded drylands release large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. This project is significant because this release of carbon dioxide and methane has not previously been accounted for and may change the magnitude of the global terrestrial carbon dioxide sink and account of some of the planet’s missing sources of methane. The outcomes of this project will make a significant contribution to our understanding of the global carbon cycle and earth climate system, and inform future management of these systems. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0501 - Ecological Applications. Lead: Prof Bradley Eyre

The emotional face: What determines preferential expression processing. The processing of facial expressions of emotion is essential for successful social functioning. However, we still lack a good understanding of key factors that facilitate or impede the processing of these important social signals. The current project aims to address this knowledge gap by providing a) a more rigorous test of the currently dominant account of expression processing, the evaluative congruence account, and delineating how b) contextual factors and c) person knowledge affect expression processing. The research aims to advance our understanding of facial expression processing, to build international collaborations, and to train the next generation of emotion scientists.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1701 - Psychology. Lead: Prof Ottmar Lipp

Food System Shocks: Managing Transitions to Future Food Security. Recent food system shocks such as bushfires, floods, drought, and the impact of Covid-19 on the harvesting and distribution of agricultural products, are having profound on-farm impacts. Farmers, as land managers, are on the front line of navigating these major disruptions whilst also maintaining continuity of supply that supports Australia's national and regional food security. Situating the farmer as the 'expert' of managing and accommodating shocks, this project will co-produce a range of evidence-based transition and innovation scenarios for the horticultural industry to enhance future preparedness for shocks and support rural livelihoods. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1608 - Sociology. Lead: Prof Carol Richards

Gender-Lens Investing: Harnessing Social Innovation for Impact. This project aims to investigate how the field of gender-lens investing can be harnessed to address gender inequality and generate social impact. It will generate novel scholarly knowledge that addresses how social innovations like GLI can emerge, grow and be sustained. The expected outcomes include improved theoretical understanding of the organisational and institutional infrastructure required to sustain social innovations by identifying obstacles and best-practice approaches for growth, organisation and governance. This should provide significant benefits in terms of national and international policies and systems supporting impact investing and addressing Sustainable Development Goals. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1503 - Business and Management. Lead: Prof Danielle Logue

Medium temperature electrolysis for low-cost carbon dioxide utilization. Carbon dioxide is a notorious greenhouse gas. Its capture, and subsequent storage or utilization, is a major focus not only for researchers, but also for governments trying to meet their obligations of the Paris Agreement on climate change and for industries managing their legal and social responsibilities. This project aims to develop commercially viable medium temperature electrolysers to convert carbon dioxide into value added chemicals using electricity from renewable sources. New design principles will be developed to generate highly active and selective catalysts with long-term stability. These electrolyzers will be integrated with carbon capture technologies to directly utilize captured carbon dioxide with high energy efficiency.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0306 - Physical Chemistry (Incl. Structural). Lead: A/Prof Jie Zhang

Public Interest Advocacy in Australian Policymaking. The project aims to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of public interest advocacy, via the media, in elevating the responsiveness of elected political elites. The project expects to generate new knowledge about how the advocacy and media agendas are set, examine the way elected elites access and ingest news media, and conditions under which advocacy groups access to news changes political priorities. It is expected that the project will provide an evidence base for citizens and policy makers to assess the effectiveness of public interest advocacy, and deliver benefits such as strengthening the quality of Australia’s representative democracy, and offer scholars new theories on the role of public interest advocacy on policy priorities.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1606 - Political Science. Lead: Prof Darren Halpin

Toward a Female Stoic Tradition: Women's Writings in England, 1600-1800. This project aims to investigate the neglected history of women’s engagement with Stoic ideas in early modern England. It expects to generate new knowledge of a distinctive strand of women’s Stoic thought by taking a novel interdisciplinary approach to different genres of early modern writing. The intended outcomes include a new understanding of women’s valuable contributions to philosophy, literature, and politics in the period, as well as a greater appreciation of the gender-inclusivity of Stoic philosophy. This should provide significant benefits, such as the development of Stoic therapeutic techniques informed by women’s experiences, and the promotion of gender equality through the recognition of women’s intellectual history.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 2202 - History and Philosophy of Specific Fields. Lead: Prof Jacqueline Broad

Doped alumina with tailored material properties for battery applications. This project aims to develop tailored alumina materials for lithium ion battery separators through a novel in-situ approach that will: (1) produce uniform doped alumina for improved safety, (2) target specific surface and bulk material properties to increase the overall performance, and (3) reduce manufacturing costs by integrating the process with new technology developed for the production of high purity alumina. Significant advances are proposed for overcoming current manufacturing limitations of doped alumina. Building research capacity and knowledge in battery material manufacturing will benefit a range of industries across Australia, whilst providing new opportunities for growth in local communities.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0912 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Prof Sara Couperthwaite

Cryobiotechnology innovations to help fight the Myrtle rust pandemic. This project aims to mitigate the impacts of Myrtle rust, a disease affecting >380 Australian taxa in the family Myrtaceae, by developing advanced techniques to conserve susceptible species. The project is expected to generate the biotechnology advances necessary to conserve multiple taxa on the brink of extinction, including species important to our emerging native botanicals industry. Expected outcomes for the project include novel protocols for initiating and maintaining sterile tissue cultures and advanced techniques for cryopreservation of susceptible species, providing insurance against extinction and sources of ex situ material for re-establishing the species in safe sites and for research into disease resistance. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management. Lead: Prof Ricardo Mancera

Paving the way to greener roads and healthier waterways. Waste tyre permeable pavement is emerging as an effective stormwater surge mitigation solution. Yet, its behaviour under traffic loads and varied environmental conditions are not fully understood which undermines industry confidence in this technology. This project aims to advance the engineering of waste tyre permeable pavements by creating new knowledge on their mechanical and hydrological performance. The project will develop design guidelines, identify the governing mechanisms and develop a performance prediction framework based on laboratory and field tests, and advanced numerical modelling. The mechanisms of performance from micro to macro level will be identified, generating knowledge for industry to support widespread uptake.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0905 - Civil Engineering. Lead: Prof Mahdi Disfani

A novel physical-digital approach for the assessing a large critical asset. This project aims to deliver an artificial intelligence-enabled decision-making tool to maintain and manage the floating covers of vast lagoons that treat raw sewage. The cover harvests the biogas released from the anaerobic digestion of sewage for electric power generation that exceeds the plant’s requirement. The approach involves an innovative thermographic technique and exploits transfer learning to adapt neural networks trained on lab-scale and synthetic data to field implementation. The outcome is a machine learning framework to optimise biogas harvesting and renewable energy generation, and to avoid structural failure, that is capable of continuous improvement to take into account improved data and/or modelling capabilities.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0905 - Civil Engineering. Lead: Prof Wing Chiu