Grants & Opportunities

Agentic Learning for Efficient and Generalisable Visual Grounding. This project aims to develop advanced artificial intelligence systems that can understand and interpret complex visual environments more effectively, efficiently, and transparently. Current artificial intelligence models for tasks often struggle to adapt to new scenarios, require vast amounts of labeled data, and lack clarity in how decisions are made. By combining visual perception with human-like reasoning, this research will create systems that actively refine their understanding of scenes, ask questions when uncertain, and explain their decisions in plain language. The outcomes will enable safer autonomous systems and more reliable healthcare diagnostics while reducing reliance on costly data annotation.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4603 - Computer Vision and Multimedia Computation. Lead: Dr Lian Xu

New Tools in Effective Field Theory for Physics beyond the Standard Model. This project aims to develop new theoretical and computational tools for effective field theories, crucial for exploring physics beyond the Standard Model. This project expects to provide methods for managing the complexity of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory arising from its large number of free parameters, while enhancing the precision of its predictions. Expected outcomes include a generalized geometric framework for effective field theories, as well as a fully automated phenomenology pipeline to test new physics models against experimental data. This research will equip both the Australian and international particle physics community with powerful tools to bridge theory and experiment at current and future facilities.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5107 - Particle and High Energy Physics. Lead: Dr Julie Pagès

Building a Black Justice Journalism. This project argues for a new form of scholarly journalism, grounded in conceptions of Black Justice, as a critical intervention needed to address the ongoing media misreporting of Indigenous affairs. Through an innovative methodological approach combining scholarship, journalistic practice and archival research, the research agenda will seek to understand the role of the media in sustaining and entrenching settler colonialism. It will interrogate the field of journalism ethics, arguing that accepted norms of journalistic practice compound harm and restrict the voices of Black Witnesses. In doing so, it will aim to build an ethics of practice in the form of Black Justice Journalism which will be disseminated to the Indigenous media sector.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Dr Amy McQuire

Understanding Gravitational Interactions in the Hearts of Galaxies. This project explores how stars and black holes evolve and collide in the dense centres of galaxies, producing powerful cosmic events. By modelling their interactions with gas discs and star clusters, the project will generate knowledge about the origins of black hole mergers and nuclear transients using advanced simulations and upcoming data from gravitational waves and electromagnetic observatories. Its significance lies in creating a unified framework—aligned with the Australian astronomy decadal plan—linking stellar evolution, gas dynamics, and these extreme phenomena. Expected outcomes include precise models that improve predictions of mergers and transients, advance astrophysics, and enhance public engagement with space science.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5101 - Astronomical Sciences. Lead: Dr Evgeni Grishin

Beyond Symmetry: Unravelling glyco-modulation of the immune system. This project aims to use state-of-the-art biological and chemical approaches to unveil how antibody glycosylation modulates the immune system. This project expects to generate new knowledge on the mechanisms modulating the immune response not yet addressed by current research. Expected outcomes include the identification of relationships between specific glycosylation states and certain immune responses. Benefits should include new knowledge improving our fundamental understanding of the antibody-mediated immune response. The outcomes will lead to future economic opportunities by tailoring monoclonal antibody production towards better efficiency. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Dr Jonathan Du

Unlocking the Mysteries of Bacterial Lifestyle Transitions. Bacteria are everywhere, playing a vital role in shaping ecosystems. Many remain dormant in their natural environment until they detect nutrients, triggering a lag phase to reactivate cellular machinery and resume growth. This universal yet poorly understood process has significant implications for industrial biomanufacturing and public health. This proposal aims to advance our understanding of the bacterial lag phase, develop strategies to enhance the efficiency of bacterial cell factories, and explore its role in antibiotic resistance—offering insights to combat the antimicrobial resistance global public health crisis.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3107 - Microbiology. Lead: Dr Liping Li

Bad Vibrations: Understanding how noise pollution affects soil health. This project will investigate how human-generated noise pollution affects soil health, an overlooked but critical environmental issue. Using innovative acoustic and DNA technology in the lab and the field, it will assess how noise impacts soil organisms and essential ecosystem functions. The findings will improve our understanding of noise-related soil degradation, informing land management and ecosystem restoration strategies. This research will support nature conservation, food security and climate resilience by identifying ways to mitigate noise pollution’s effects on soil ecosystems. The outcomes will benefit environmental policy, agriculture and urban planning, helping to position Australia as a leader in soil health research.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4106 - Soil Sciences. Lead: Dr Jake Robinson

Physics-Informed Digital Twin for Large-scale Metal Additive Manufacturing. This project aims to develop a physics-informed digital twin framework for metal additive manufacturing (AM) to enhance process monitoring, simulation, and control. By integrating multi-sensor fusion, machine learning, and reinforcement learning, the system will enable real-time defect detection, predictive process modelling, and adaptive control. The outcomes include improved accuracy, reduced defects, and enhanced production efficiency, benefiting the aerospace and automotive industries. This research supports Australia’s national priority in advanced manufacturing, strengthens industry collaboration, and trains future experts in intelligent AM technologies, contributing to a more sustainable and globally competitive manufacturing sector.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4014 - Manufacturing Engineering. Lead: Dr LEI YUAN

Unveiling Myeloid Cells as Regulators of Nerve Innervation in Tissue Repair. The mechanisms that regulate peripheral tissue healing are not yet fully understood. My recent research, published in Nature in 2024, discovered that a neuro-immune axis plays a critical role in controlling skin and muscle healing in normal mice after injury. I found that nociceptor sensory nerve endings grow and infiltrate the tissue injury site and release neuropeptides, promoting tissue repair by locally regulating immune cells. These findings underscore the importance of nociceptor activation in skin and muscle healing. In this proposal, I aim to investigate how nociceptors are initially activated and regulated in injured skin and muscle, and how these mechanisms contribute to the regulation of tissue healing.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3206 - Medical Biotechnology. Lead: Dr Yen-Zhen Lu

The Role of Money in Politics: Growing Concerns but Scarce Evidence. This project aims to investigate how financial power influences political decision-making and policy outcomes. It will examine how economic booms affect political participation and assess the effectiveness of campaign finance reforms in reducing undue influence. This project expects to generate new knowledge in political economy by using innovative data science techniques to study governance and electoral policies. Expected outcomes include new academic research, public datasets, and strengthened research collaborations. This should provide significant benefits, such as informing electoral reforms, improving transparency, and supporting evidence-based policy-making in Australia and beyond.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3801 - Applied Economics. Lead: Dr Ricardo Dahis

An SA in-situ Scanning Electron Microscopy facility for Advanced Materials. This proposal aims to establish Australia’s first open access in-situ scanning electron microscope with Raman. The custom-built platform will provide state-of-the-art investigations of advanced materials under environmental conditions, including temperatures from -5 to 1000°C, tensile stress up to 5kN, gaseous and liquid environments, under bias and electrochemical control. The multifunctional platform will directly correlate chemical composition with microstructure with in-situ Raman microscopy providing insight into chemical changes of materials under working conditions. The expected outcomes are the development of new materials for next generation batteries, solar cells, quantum materials, mining, defence and advanced manufacturing. . Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 4017 - Mechanical Engineering. Lead: Prof Sarah Harmer

Earth’s Thermostat: Did landscape evolution cool past Hothouse climates? This project explores how Earth's landscape has been reshaped over millions of years — and how these changes helped cool the planet by pulling CO2 from the atmosphere. By understanding how erosion and weathering naturally remove CO2, we can better assess climate change solutions that aim to speed up this process, like enhanced silicate weathering. Expected outcomes include the first global models linking landscape evolution to the geochemical record, revealing how Earth's natural thermostat works. The findings will guide carbon removal strategies and help pinpoint stable crustal regions rich in critical minerals for the green energy transition. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3709 - Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience. Lead: Dr Samuel Boone

Designing peacemaking programs with First Nations languages and communities. This project aims to examine mediation, negotiation and peacemaking processes in First Nations communities, and the language practices that underpin them. Working under First Nations governance, the project expects to generate new knowledge about how these practices are being sustained, and how are they being adapted to contemporary community- and school-based contexts. The expected outcome is an improved understanding of peacemaking practices in First Nations communities and how they are supported by linguistic practices. The project will provide significant benefits by advancing the design and facilitation of culturally responsive peacemaking processes and improving cross-cultural mediation and negotiation programs.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Dr James Bednall

Higher-order Fourier analysis: discerning structure from randomness. Despite having only arisen in the past 25 years, higher-order Fourier analysis has yielded remarkable breakthroughs in mathematics, including in combinatorics (e.g., around Szemerédi’s theorem), number theory (e.g., the Green-Tao theorem), ergodic theory, and theoretical computer science. Given the youth of the subject, understanding of it is in its infancy. This project aims to develop frameworks for understanding the generalised oscillatory patterns underlying higher-order Fourier analysis. These frameworks will be used to resolve major open problems about pseudorandomness in the above contexts, place Australia at the forefront of knowledge in this nascent area, and foster international collaboration in the many areas to which it applies.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4904 - Pure Mathematics. Lead: Dr Daniel Altman

Nickel isotope insights into planet formation. This project aims to unravel the formation and differentiation of terrestrial planets, including Earth, the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, through high-precision Nickel (Ni) isotope analyses. By leveraging the ⁶⁰Fe-⁶⁰Ni decay system, Ni nucleosynthetic anomalies, and stable isotope fractionation, the project will refine our understanding of planetary timing, origins, and volatile depletion, including water. These insights are crucial for planetary habitability, benefiting Australian planetary exploration, training future scientists, and advancing Ni isotope applications in mining and environmental studies.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3703 - Geochemistry. Lead: Dr Ke Zhu

The Digitisation Centre of Western Australia: Phase 2. The Digitisation Centre of WA is a major piece of national research infrastructure with a prominent international profile. We will extend its digitisation capability, range and impact through adding 3D scanning capacity to the Centre. Partners hold invaluable and unique Western Australian type specimen, reference and taxonomic collections, not currently accessible to researchers due to their vulnerability and significance. Researchers must travel to Western Australia to view them. Using technology not previously available, we will build a 3D Object Scanning Laboratory with wide disciplinary reach, making collections nationally and internationally available for the first time and ensuring their preservation for future generations. . Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 4302 - Heritage, Archive and Museum Studies. Lead: Prof Helena Grehan

Inverse design of wave metamaterials for energy concentration. This project aims to develop an advanced topology optimisation framework for the automatic discovery of wave metamaterials for energy concentration. The project expects to digitally design materials that can achieve a wide range of frequency responses, addressing complex performance challenges that currently exist in waveguides, sensors, and energy harvesters. The expected outcomes include an efficient computational tool and optimization algorithms that integrate with additive manufacturing to enable the characterisation, design, and fabrication of the next-generation metamaterials. The research will contribute significantly to the sustainable development of Australia’s knowledge-based economy and commercial sectors.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4017 - Mechanical Engineering. Lead: Dr Weibai Li

Reaping Clean Power: Sustainable Energy Integration in Protected Cropping. This project aims to address the heavy dependence on fossil fuels in protected cropping systems by integrating low-carbon energy solutions that are tailored to Australia’s diverse climate zones. It expects to generate new knowledge in environmental and techno-economic assessment of renewable energy for high-tech glasshouses and vertical farms, advancing data-driven methods for reducing emissions and costs. Anticipated outcomes include a comprehensive framework for energy optimisation, improved resource efficiency, and guidelines for industry adoption. This will provide significant benefits, including strengthening food security, enhancing Australia’s leadership in sustainable agricultural practices, and transitioning to a net zero economy.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3008 - Horticultural Production. Lead: Dr Jing He

Computationally efficient climate projections under net-zero and beyond. The project aims to develop a computationally efficient climate model emulator suitable for net-zero and net-negative emission scenarios. As a result, the project expects to generate new knowledge of our future climate, specifically spatially resolved projections with an explicit focus on uncertainties. The project’s expected outcome is a new capability to explore the climate implications of different choices on the path to net-zero and beyond. This should provide significant benefits, such as establishing Australia’s position in the rapidly growing area of spatially explicit climate model emulators and providing a new, open-source tool for use both within, and outside, research.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3702 - Climate Change Science. Lead: Dr Zebedee Nicholls

Shock Value - Electrical Phenomena in Charge of Ore Formation. This project aims to investigate how the formation of valuable and critical minerals is enabled by natural voltages generated by quartz, a piezoelectric mineral that produces an electric charge when stressed. This project expects to generate new knowledge concerning ore deposit formation, thereby enabling more efficient mineral exploration. Expected outcomes of the project include establishing core principles regarding the geological significance of piezoelectricity, with implications for metal cycling and hydrogen generation in Earth’s crust. This should provide significant benefits, such as aiding the discovery of new deposits of valuable and critical minerals, as well as hydrogen reservoirs, a crucial clean energy source.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3703 - Geochemistry. Lead: Dr Christopher Voisey

Defining optimal cell culture conditions to prevent T cell ferroptosis . This project aims to improve the survival and function of T cells by fine-tuning the conditions in which they grow. Currently, physicians rely solely on a minimum number of collected primary cells to expand or modify, which presents a challenge in acquiring sufficient cell numbers. Our project specifically aims to understand and control the metabolic changes that lead to particular cell death, with the goal of developing better culture conditions to keep cells healthy and functional. The anticipated benefits include include advancements in fundamental biology, cell metabolism research, cell expansion industries, cell-based therapy research, and more.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Dr Pooranee Morgan

Navigating Social Media Experiences within Australian Families. This research aims to understand Australian families' social media experiences and the associated impacts on children aged 8-17. It will reframe the thinking about children's social media experiences as shaped by familial, social, and technical contexts. Expected outcomes include knowledge about the experiences of families navigating the complexities of social media and a theoretical innovation for understanding the impacts of social media on children. In the context of a legislated ban on some social media for children under 16, this work benefits governments, families, and children by providing evidence-based policy directions and resources to promote safe and age-appropriate social media experiences.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3904 - Specialist Studies In Education. Lead: Dr Tiffani Apps

A new family of mechanically-activated lipid scramblases . Cells transduce mechanical stimuli into complex signalling cascades, yet the molecular sensors of these processes remain incompletely resolved. This project aims to understand how ions and lipids can be transported across the lipid bilayer through the same transporter, conserved from plants to humans, in response to mechanical cues. This will unveil a completely new type of cellular force sensor revolutionizing our understanding of the strategies cells use to withstand large mechanical forces. The integrated experimental platform developed through this project, enabling simultaneous visualization of lipid movement, ion flow, and force dynamics, will offer significant advancements in cardiac biology, immunology, plant biology and beyond.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Dr Zijing Zhou

Using low-redshift cosmic observables to probe local space-time curvature. This project aims to measure local distortions in space from nearby clumps of matter using exciting new observations and simulations. We usually study our cosmic neighborhood in a vastly simplified way, neglecting local curvature entirely. This project will develop methods for data analysis that go beyond common over-simplifications. This project expects to generate new knowledge in studying inhomogeneous curvature and expansion, which are naturally expected in the nearby Universe, with a novel approach. Expected outcomes include potential solutions to current differences in observations compared to theory. This should place Australia as a leader in cosmology and supply the next generation of scientists with advanced computational skills.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5101 - Astronomical Sciences. Lead: Dr Hayley Macpherson

Locally-led Collaborative Urban Governance in Superdiverse Suburban Centres. Superdiversity is a growing trait of Australian suburban centres, where cultural, generational and other forms of diversity intersect. Many suburban centres also face urban decline and disadvantage. This project examines locally-led collaborative governance as an emerging strategy for revitalising these centres where traditional policy levers have shortcomings. By investigating how locally-led collaboration shapes revitalisation, this study will generate critical insights for scholarly debate on collaboration inclusion and effectiveness in diverse settings. Findings will inform policymaking through a toolkit, briefings and a national roundtable, enhancing Australia’s capacity to foster urban revitalisation in diverse suburban contexts. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3304 - Urban and Regional Planning. Lead: Dr Hayley Henderson