Grants & Opportunities

ARC Research Hub in Zero-emission Power Generation for Carbon Neutrality. This Hub aims to develop sustainable zero-emission power generation technologies to transform gaseous waste (mainly CO2) from our energy and manufacturing sectors into valuable products and create scalable pathways to market for driving industry transformation. This Hub expects to harvest renewable energy from the environment by using zero-emission power generators and then store it in green and safer batteries for converting gaseous waste from sectors that cannot easily avoid emission into useful chemicals, which in turn realize carbon neutrality and negativity. The outcomes of this Hub are likely to be transformative for industry, the economy, and society in new-type renewable energy resources through decreasing environmental pollutants. . Scheme: Industrial Transformation Research Hubs. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Prof Zhi-Gang Chen

ARC Training Centre for Automated Vehicles in Rural and Remote Regions. The Centre will build skills and capability to test and deploy safe, socially acceptable, automated vehicles (AV) for rural, regional and remote Australian public roads, where manufacturing, agriculture, mining and defence industries face significant challenges of driver shortages, rising costs, long distances, rough roads, and environmental impacts. The centre will unite technology providers, regulators, government and end users with world-leading interdisciplinary researchers to create new human-AV systems, datasets, frameworks, case studies, platforms, and a vastly upskilled workforce. This will reduce transport costs, increase capacity, boost supply chain efficiency and resilience, improve road safety, and elevate Australian capability.. Scheme: Industrial Transformation Training Centres. Field: 4608 - Human-Centred Computing. Lead: Prof Sebastien Glaser

Quinoid Polymers for Organic Electrochemical Transistors and Bioelectronics. This project aims to develop organic semiconductors (OSCs) with excellent mechanical flexibility and biocompatibility to exploit their potentials in bioelectronics. It connects the electronic world with ionic world of biology to push the biomedical application of OSCs a big step forward. Interdisciplinary knowledge, intellectual properties (IPs), top-notch publications, invited talks, and international collaborations are expected. Additionally, it will earn Australia a commercial lead in the biomedical sector to attract more talents to serve Australia. This project also matches well with several government’s strategic research priorities, attracting industries to realise IPs transfer to bring “great value for money” to feed back Australia.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Qian Liu

Innovating and Validating Scalable Monte Carlo Methods. This project aims to develop innovative scalable Monte Carlo methods for statistical analysis in the presence of big data or complex mathematical models. Existing approaches to scalable Monte Carlo are only approximate, and their inaccuracies are difficult to quantify. This can have a detrimental impact on data-based decision making. The expected outcomes of this project are scalable Monte Carlo methods that are more accurate, fast and capable of quantifying inaccuracies. Scientists and decision-makers will benefit from the ability to obtain timely, reliable insights for challenging applications.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4905 - Statistics. Lead: Dr Leah South

Design new-generation microscale thermoelectric device. This project aims at realizing ultrahigh thermoelectric power generating performance in the microscale device by developing new theoretical models for thermoelectric power-generation to guide the synergistic thin-film material and device design, and corresponding fabrication. The outcomes are expected to lead to revolutionary development of the thermoelectric technology, significantly extend the application of this emission/vibration/noise/service-free technology and expand the corresponding market, which will benefit the wide Australian community academically, educationally, socially, economically and environmentally.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Weidi Liu

A Justice-based Approach to Climate-related Planned Relocation. Planned relocation of populations away from climate risk is a critical adaptation strategy. Yet relocation is fraught as it disrupts livelihoods, social networks and place-attachment. This project aims to examine how justice can be centred in planned relocation using innovative cross-cultural methods in six case studies across Australia and Fiji. New knowledge will be generated on effective governance, barriers to participation, and long-term impacts of relocation. Expected outcomes of this project are innovations at the nexus of adaptation, relocation and justice, new international research networks, and direct improvement of how relocation is planned and managed by governments, through recommendations and a framework for Just Relocation.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4406 - Human Geography. Lead: Dr Annah Piggott-McKellar

Synergy between future 21-cm experiments and physical cosmology. The nature of dark matter and formation of the first galaxies are both unsolved mysteries. During the first 500 million years, our universe was filled with hydrogen atoms illuminated by the first galaxies. The 21-cm radiation from this gas encodes properties of unseen galaxies and dark matter during this so-called cosmic dawn. This project aims to build an innovative framework to leverage future 21-cm experiments using The Square Kilometre Array to observe cosmic dawn, and to forecast the optimal constraints on dark matter physics. Additional outcomes include the largest cosmological simulation of the first galaxies powered by neural networks and improved knowledge of their properties using Bayes' theorem and The James Webb Space Telescope.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5101 - Astronomical Sciences. Lead: Dr Yuxiang Qin

Bioinspired 2D nanocatalysts for inorganic nitrogen cycle. This project aims to develop novel catalysts for high-efficient nitrogen fixation by learning from the natural enzymes, which can convert nitrogen or nitrate into reactive ammonia at very mild conditions. It is expected that the enzyme-mimicking catalysts possessing the nitrogen active sites similar with the natural enzymes will allow the effective fixation of nitrogen from both the atmosphere and the nitrogen excessively fertilized environment into reusable ammonia. The outcomes of this project will provide a sustainable approach to solve the issues in current unbalanced inorganic nitrogen cycle in the world and contribute to a green artificial nitrogen cycle while with minimized environmental impact.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Juan Bai

Linking movement and animal vision to uncover functions of dynamic colours. This project aims to address a fundamental biological question: what drives the extraordinary diversity of colours in nature? Using cutting-edge, interdisciplinary techniques, this project expects to link visual properties, movement and animal vision to discover functions of animal colouration, generating significant new insights for the fields of visual ecology, animal behaviour and camouflage. The outcomes of this project include enhanced national and international collaboration and new tools for animal behaviour, perception and camouflage research. This work will benefit our understanding of vision, colour and the relationship between the two, with significant scope for bio-inspired solutions to sensor and image processing problems.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3103 - Ecology. Lead: Dr Amanda Franklin

Reverse Design of Tuneable 4D Printed Materials for Soft Robotics. This project aims to facilitate the design and manufacture of specialised objects that can change their shape over time. These types of objects are made from ‘tuneable metamaterials’, which can be made by 4D printing: 3D printing with an added dimension of time. These materials are becoming indispensable in many fields- including non-metallic soft robots used in medicine or the exploration of harsh environments like space- but are currently onerous to make. This project will develop a revolutionary new method for a user to work backward from defining the desired qualities to the manufacture of the object that satisfies their needs. It will also create a library that will allow users to quickly select a material that will be appropriate.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4017 - Mechanical Engineering. Lead: Dr Ali Zolfagharian

Molecular characterisation of pore-forming proteins as pest control agents. This project aims to utilise protein engineering, structural biology, and biochemistry to characterise the function of key members of the aerolysin/epsilon toxin/Toxin_10 pore-forming protein superfamily. Pore formation is a ubiquitous mechanism deployed by all kingdoms as defences against invading organisms. The expected outcomes of this project include the development of novel techniques aimed, broadly, at studying pore-forming proteins during the assembly pathway. This project should be of benefit to the wider research community by improving our understanding of pore-forming proteins as potential pest control agents. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Dr Bradley Spicer

Probing dark energy with the largest 3D Map of the Universe. Dark Energy is one of the most profound mysteries of modern physics. It makes up about 70 percent of the Universe, but no compelling theory can explain its nature. This project aims to measure the properties of Dark Energy with unprecedented accuracy: an order of magnitude better than the state of the art. It aims to accomplish this by extracting information from the largest 3D map of the cosmos, built with the optical spectra of 35 million galaxies, observed by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. This project will foster Australia's historic leadership and investments in galaxy surveys via unique international partnerships, and produce cutting-edge tools for big data analyses with important applications in a wide range of industries.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5101 - Astronomical Sciences. Lead: Dr Rossana Ruggeri

Behind the barrier: using mathematics to understand the neuro-immune system. This project aims to develop new mathematical methods to study healthy immune cell regulation in the brain and movement across the Blood Brain Barrier. The project expects to develop novel deterministic and stochastic mathematics that captures the stochasticity of immune cells in the Central Nervous System (brain and spine) and form the foundation of a new field of mathematical research: mathematical neuroimmunology. Expected benefits of this project include new mathematical tools, biological insight, and strong interdisciplinary collaborations. From this project, Australia will be placed at the forefront of mathematical research in neuroimmunology, and there will be a complete understanding of homeostasis of the neuro-immune system. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4901 - Applied Mathematics. Lead: Dr Adrianne Jenner

Landscape-climate disequilibrium in dune fields. This project aims to predict how wind-blown landscapes respond to changes in climate. This project expects to use novel experiments and theoretical advances to meet this aim, then apply the prediction to the dune fields which cover a third of Australia's surface to generate new knowledge on what climate shaped them in the past, and how they will respond to anthropogenic climate change. Expected outcomes of this project will strengthen collaboration with discipline-leading international researchers and develop a globally-unique laboratory experimental capability in Australia. This should provide significant benefits to understanding environmental change in Australia by vastly improving predictions of dune-field response to future climate.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3709 - Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience. Lead: Dr Andrew Gunn

Neanderthal hunting ability and the extinction of archaic humans. This project aims to investigate a critical factor in explaining Neanderthals extinction: their hunting abilities. The research expects to generate new knowledge of archaic humans behaviour using an innovative approach combining traditional archaeological analytical methods with ground-breaking biomolecular techniques. Expected outcomes of this project include the development of new knowledge in human evolutionary history and improved techniques to understand past human extinction events. This should provide significant benefits for Australia to become a primary power in studying human past and deep history, while enhancing capacity by becoming the first country in the Southern Hemisphere to implement ancient protein studies in archaeology.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4301 - Archaeology. Lead: Dr Sofia Samper Carro

Solving key issues in wearable thermoelectrics for practical applications. Wearable thermoelectrics can directly harvest electricity from body heat, offering a new technology to charge wearable electronics sustainably, but their unsatisfied performance and durability limit their applications. This project aims to design efficient and durable wearable thermoelectrics based on novel carbon/polymer/semiconductor (CPS) hybrid films. The key breakthrough is to develop advanced hybrid materials and devices with record-high thermoelectric performance, high stability, and high durability to tackle long-lasting practical application issues. The expected outcomes will lead to innovative technology for energy conversion and advanced manufacturing and place Australia at the forefront of energy and manufacturing.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Xiaolei Shi

Diversity Oriented Clicking - Streamlined Synthesis of Molecular Frameworks. Innovation in synthetic chemistry drives the discovery of new life-changing drugs, agrochemicals and functional materials. This project aims to use a novel chemical concept, termed Diversity Oriented Clicking, for new sustainable and streamlined synthetic transformations. The new chemical processes are expected to deliver improved economy, efficiency and precision in the synthesis of bioactive molecules and functional materials that are inaccessible or challenging to prepare with existing technologies. The conceptual and practical outcomes of this project are expected to benefit both academia and industry as the synthetic routes to diverse complex molecules can be greatly streamlined, and reducing chemical waste and required purification.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3405 - Organic Chemistry. Lead: Dr Christopher Smedley

The geometry of braids and triangulated categories. Triangulated categories play a central role in geometry, algebra, and topology. Their study can uncover deep structure connecting different areas of mathematics. This project aims to use novel approaches to answer fundamental questions about triangulated categories and their symmetries. These symmetries are encoded by braids, which are important objects with many applications across science. The project is expected to benefit Australia by stimulating research in mathematics and computer science. It will invite connections with leading experts and students around the world and encourage overseas collaboration. There is a potential long-term benefit to cybersecurity, towards the development of new encryption schemes based on braids.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4904 - Pure Mathematics. Lead: Dr Asilata Bapat

Child Citizens: Young People and Australian Democracy since 1945. This project provides a new account of Australian democracy from the perspective of children and young people. It tracks changes in children’s conceptions and practices of citizenship since 1945 to explain their contested status in contemporary politics. Far from simply being ‘citizens in waiting’, the project shows that young people have long been active participants in political and civic life and reveals how their citizenship claims have expanded across this period, alongside those of other marginalised groups. Its findings will add nuance to current debates about children’s political exclusion, with its social impact enhanced through the development of an online research portal and collaboration with the Museum of Australian Democracy.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4303 - Historical Studies. Lead: Dr Isobelle Barrett Meyering

Barking up the right trees – A microbial solution for our methane problem. This project aims to unveil the microbial diversity and metabolic capabilities of bark-dwelling microbial communities in Australian forests. Trees perform an important climatic function in sequestering atmospheric carbon, however the role of tree bark-associated microbiome in regulating other climate-active trace gasses such as methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide is unknown. Combining cutting-edge molecular and biogeochemical approaches, this project aims to characterise and quantify trace gas oxidation rates of forest bark microbiome. The anticipated outcomes include fundamental knowledge surrounding bark-associated microbial trace gas oxidation within global biogeochemical cycles, and insights into their response to climatic variables.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4105 - Pollution and Contamination. Lead: Dr Luke Jeffrey

Investigating Telehealth Psychological Support. This project aims to investigate how practitioners and LGBTIQ+ patients engaged in long term psychological support experience telehealth and navigate continuity of care in their experience of this support. This project expects to generate new knowledge to support the provision of best practice in telehealth support for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. Expected outcomes will be enhanced understanding of how practitioners and patients navigate continuity of care and psychological support via telehealth and practice-ready resources for medical providers. This should provide significant benefits such as expanded accessibility, improved service delivery, usability and effectiveness in mental healthcare in Australia.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4410 - Sociology. Lead: Dr Joe Latham

Unravelling the pathways of methane production and oxidation in mangroves. This project addresses a long-standing conundrum of why high methane emissions are sustained in saline coastal wetlands by identifying and quantifying methane production and oxidation processes in mangrove ecosystems. Using a novel combination of cutting-edge instrumentation for greenhouse gases, radiocarbon/stable isotope analysis, this project will generate a first complete picture of the mangrove methane cycle, to accurately quantify, for the first time, Australia’s contribution to global coastal mangrove emissions. The outcomes will establish currently lacking fundamental understanding of wetland methane cycling, advance global biogeochemical models, and improve strategies for natural climate solutions of coastal wetlands in Australia.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3703 - Geochemistry. Lead: A/Prof Judith Rosentreter

Beyond Imported Understandings of Domestic Violence in the Pacific. High occurrences of domestic violence across the Pacific region threatens the growth and development of all sectors. This project aims to investigate local understandings of the causes, manifestations, and best-suited responses to the problem in the Pacific. It advances a study of local stakeholder’s perspectives of domestic violence in two of the least developed Pacific Island countries to generate non-Western, context-specific insight into developing policies and practices to inform improved frontline responses. Expected outcomes include the development of an evidence base to inform contextually appropriate and innovative responses to domestic violence, with benefits to islander/indigenous communities and economies in Oceania.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4513 - Pacific Peoples Culture, Language and History. Lead: Dr Danielle Watson

Sensory and bioengineering approaches to predict hearing abilities in fish. This project aims to understand the factors responsible for the extraordinary diversity in the shape and size of fish ears and why some fishes are more sensitive to sound than others, which is little understood. Using innovative techniques and a multidisciplinary approach, expected outcomes of this project include the first model representing the hearing function of fish underwater. This may allow unique insights into the importance of sound for fish, as well as inspire the development of new sensor technologies, including in robotics and biomedical applications. Benefits include the ability to predict the vulnerability of a fish species to noise pollution and to inform conservation strategies and policy guidelines.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3104 - Evolutionary Biology. Lead: Dr Lucille Chapuis

Galactic Outflows: Pushing the Distance Frontiers. This project aims to push the frontiers of our knowledge of galactic outflows: a key physical process shaping galaxy formation and evolution. Using cutting-edge facilities including the new, high-profile James Webb Space Telescope, this project expects to build the first holistic picture of outflows in the distant past, when present-day galaxies were still taking shape. Expected outcomes include a novel framework for measuring outflow properties, and new understanding of the physics of distant outflows. This research is expected to provide strong benefits by enhancing the legacy of Australia’s $122M partnership with the European Southern Observatory and placing Australia at the forefront of the James Webb Space Telescope revolution.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 5101 - Astronomical Sciences. Lead: Dr Rebecca Davies