Grants & Opportunities

Emerging blue carbon pathways as natural climate solutions. This project aims to uncover whether two previously-overlooked pathways of the coastal carbon cycle can provide climate mitigation benefits. Using innovative experiments and oceanographic modelling, this project will quantify coastal carbon injection to the deep sea and carbon storage in unvegetated shelf sediments, helping solve outstanding questions regarding the role of coastal vegetated ecosystems in the ocean carbon budget. Project outcomes will deliver robust models for cost-effective carbon accounting, and a tool to verify the climate benefits of managing coastal ecosystems. This will facilitate the development of novel climate mitigation activities, positioning Australia at the leading edge of ocean-based climate action. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4101 - Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation. Lead: Dr Albert Pessarrodona Silvestre

Enhancing residual trapping of CO2 during geological sequestration. The project aims to investigate CO2 trapping in porous media during cyclic CO2-water injection by developing an advanced pore-scale model for multiphase flow. Following validation using 3D-printed micromodels, simulations with a wide range of process parameters will identify conditions for maximum trapping. The project expects to generate new knowledge of the effects of fluid properties and flow conditions on CO2 trapping efficiency and a deeper understanding of how pore geometry and spatial heterogeneity affect multiphase flow processes in porous media. The developed simulation technique and new knowledge will enable enhanced CO2 geologic storage efficiency and reduced risk of leakage and hence wider use of carbon geosequestration.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4012 - Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Engineering. Lead: Dr Zhongzheng Wang

Quantifying Australia's long-term risk of rainfall extremes. Rainfall extremes, such as droughts and floods, severely impact the Australian economy and society. This project aims to quantify the range of Australian rainfall extremes during past centuries—including long-lasting events beyond recent experience. This will allow accurate assessment of Australia's rainfall risk in the coming decades, by accounting for natural rainfall variability as well as human-caused climate change. Geochemical data and numerical methods developed in this project have applications for water security and biosecurity, and will transform future research into long-term climate risk. This should provide significant benefits for water resource managers, allowing preparation for rainfall extremes we might face in the future.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3702 - Climate Change Science. Lead: Dr Georgina Falster

Knowledge Enriched Approach for Effective Personalization. This project aims to integrate the strength of both knowledge and data to generate effective personalization using a novel neural-symbolic machine learning approach. This project expects to solve several challenges in pure data driven approaches (e.g., data sparsity, data bias and lack of transparency) while leveraging the simplicity of heuristic-based approaches. Expected outcomes include a novel neural-symbolic approach for user modelling that is applicable to personalisation problems in a wide range of industries. This is expected to provide significant benefit to public organisations through enabling provision of personalised service by better understanding individual users (e.g., personalized learning and personalized medicine).. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4605 - Data Management and Data Science. Lead: Dr Weiqing Wang

Generative Models for Generalised Skeleton-based Human Action Recognition. This project aims to develop innovative techniques rooted in generative models for more generalised human action recognition using privacy-preserving skeleton sequences. This project expects to contribute new knowledge in data-efficient learning, zero-shot learning, and domain adaptation through the development of novel methods. Expected outcomes of this project include novel techniques for generating skeleton data and enhancing action recognition models, enabling models to recognise unseen actions and adapt to diverse domains with limited training data. This should provide significant benefits to science, society, and the economy nationally and internationally, through various applications such as in autonomous vehicles and healthcare.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4611 - Machine Learning. Lead: Dr Qiuhong Ke

Hydrogen Hub Futures. This project aims to assist Australia’s developing hydrogen industry deliver its potential decarbonization, economic and social benefits, by critically examining the hydrogen hub model and its impact on regional communities. This project expects to generate new knowledge by being the first ethnographic study of Australia’s emerging hydrogen industry. Expected outcomes of this project include enhanced understanding of the consequences of the hydrogen hub model and its impacts for regional communities, theoretical development in the social sciences of industrial decarbonisation, a documentary film for research dissemination, and policy recommendations for hydrogen development planning that take into account community concerns and desires. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4401 - Anthropology. Lead: Dr Kari Dahlgren

Solving a mercurial mystery: the evolutionary origin of mercury methylation. This project aims to investigate the evolutionary origin of microbial mercury methylation, testing a possible link with arsenic resistance. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the areas of biogeochemistry and microbial genetics using a multi-omics approach to explore why microbes produce this more toxic form of mercury. Expected outcomes include expanding our understanding of the biochemical mechanism of mercury methylation and improving predictions of the production and accumulation of this toxin in aquatic ecosystems. This should provide significant environmental benefits, such as informing Australian regulation of mercury emissions, limiting the toxic effects of mercury on humans and wildlife, and its burden on food safety.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4105 - Pollution and Contamination. Lead: Dr Caitlin Gionfriddo

Dandhigu yimbana: Listening on Country for social-emotional wellbeing. Dandhigu yimbana are Gunggari words used to acknowledge the impact and different meanings of listening on Country for First Nations peoples. This project is implemented by community-based and academic Indigenous researchers, engaged in promoting social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) through deep active listening practices. It will contribute to reforms at the cultural interface of Indigenous health and arts-based research and extend international evidence of the strong contribution of the arts in promoting wellbeing and health equity and in enhancing research quality and impact. It uses Arts and Indigenous research methods to understand the relationship between the wellbeing of Country and people mediated through listening practices.. Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Dr Vicki Saunders

Advancing Indigenous social marketing process and practices. Youth sexual violence and abuse (YSVA) affects urban, regional and remote communities, with Indigenous youth disproportionately impacted. This project aims to reduce YSVA rates in Indigenous populations, focusing on local needs and promoting shared responsibility and awareness. With a national child sexual abuse rate of 28.5%, the project addresses lifelong impacts. Anticipated outcomes involve three pilot studies, implementing bystander programs, fostering safe relationships and social connections, and developing an Indigenous theory. Aligned with Queensland's YSVA Steering Committee report, benefits will include creating positive change within communities like Jagera, Giabal, and Jarowair, contributing to a reduction in YSVA.. Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 3506 - Marketing. Lead: Dr Jessica Harris

Community-Led Approaches to Teaching Australian South Sea Islander History. This project argues that a new approach to teaching Australian South Sea Islander history in primary and secondary school education is urgently needed to address conditions by which Australian South Sea Islander students are made disadvantaged at school. Through a Tok Stori methodological approach that draws on community knowledges, this project will develop new ways of teaching Australian South Sea Islander history. It will work towards implementing the kind of meaningful progress that failed to follow the 1993 Recognition, build transnational research links, and increase and strengthen the capacity of Australian South Sea Islander educators and researchers. . Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4513 - Pacific Peoples Culture, Language and History. Lead: Dr Francis Bobongie-Harris

Advanced Heart Simulator: Unveiling the Fluid Dynamics of Heart Valves. This project aims to develop an experimental and computational platform to simulate the dynamic interaction between blood flow and heart valves. This project will significantly improve our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms governing heart valve function. Therefore, the outcome of this project is an state-of-the-art heart simulator, a critical tool for assessing and refining innovative heart valve designs, characterising how they perform under realistic physiological conditions. The deep understanding and robust experimental capability delivered by this platform are essential to the future development of safer, more effective prosthetic heart valves in Australia, thus improving the lives of patients with heart valve disease.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4012 - Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Engineering. Lead: Prof Zhi-Yong Li

Enhancing Antimicrobial Activity Using Synergistic Resistance Mitigation. This project aims to combat antibiotic resistance by developing synergistic compounds targeting the extracellular polymeric substance in biofilms. Utilizing Neolixir's NeoX-101 platform, compounds will be screened to identify combinations disrupting the extracellular polymeric matrix. New insights into nanoscale extracellular polymeric matrix interactions will be generated using metabolomics and high-resolution imaging. Outcomes include an extracellular polymeric matrix-targeting toolbox for potentiating antibiotics and a robust screening pipeline. Benefits include accelerating novel antibiotic resistance strategies and fostering polymer and nanoscale imaging innovation against biofilm infections. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 3403 - Macromolecular and Materials Chemistry. Lead: Prof Killugudi Swaminatha-Iyer

Radiatively cooled high-performance solar cell. This project aims to develop a novel type of flexible solar cell (FSC), which integrates microstructures for radiative cooling and nanostructures for light trapping. The project expects to develop the first self-cooling FSC and generate new knowledge in renewable energy and advanced manufacturing. The expected outcome is increased conversion efficiency through enhanced absorption of solar energy and lower energy consumption through more efficient cooling during operation. Self-cooling of the FSC can minimise heat-introduced degradation and extend its lifetime. This project should provide a revolutionary solution to the bottleneck of the thermal instability of FSCs and increase their cost effectiveness, promoting commercialisation.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: A/Prof Han Lin

Multi-feed system for 3D printing of fibrous earth for social housing. This project aims to develop systematic methodologies for processing fibrous earth materials for 3D construction printing by utilising a multi-feed extrusion approach for engineered earth mixtures. This project expects to overcome current commercialising limitations in 3D earth printing using novel techniques for printing replicable engineered earth mixtures with on-demand fibre mixing feature. Expected outcome includes developing standardised methods for 3D construction printing of earth houses in Australia that can substitute conventional concrete construction. This objective addresses the pressing housing crisis and the critical demand for affordable and sustainable dwellings, especially in regional Australia and remote communities.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 3302 - Building. Lead: Dr Mohamed Gomaa

Real-time detection of Asbestos in the field. This project will develop a new technique for reliable, real-time detection of Asbestos. Despite being banned for 30+ years asbestos remains an outstanding health issue, with no reliable method for identification without samples needing to be sent to a lab for analysis. Utilising new optics and fluorescence detection techniques along with machine-learning analysis, we will develop and validate a portable device that can be used to detect asbestos in real-world scenarios where it may be encountered, such as within homes, workplaces, customs inspections, material and mulch recycling centres and mining operations. This has the potential for significant public health and economic benefits through reduced exposure to hazardous asbestos dust.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4009 - Electronics, Sensors and Digital Hardware. Lead: Prof Nigel Spooner

Community completeness in monitoring of post-mining restoration success. This project will investigate why particular plant species and plant functions are absent from post-mining vegetation using the ecological concepts of species pools, dark diversity, and community completeness. This collaborative research between ecologists, statisticians and the mining industry will develop AI-driven tools to more effectively monitor the vegetation against restoration targets and deepen our understanding of how a community reassembles after disturbance by mining. Such tools will benefit both industry and regulators by enhancing the on-ground decisions and practices applied in ecosystem rehabilitation.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 3103 - Ecology. Lead: Prof Ladislav Mucina

Deadly Home Reading: Enabling Indigenous Children’s Literacy & Wellbeing. This project tests the effectiveness of a new parent/carer phonics, oral language and self-concept enhancement home reading intervention on young (K-2) Indigenous children’s literacy, oral language and self-concept. The project expects to generate new knowledge about effective home reading strategies for Indigenous children by capitalising upon interdisciplinary advances from “The Science of Reading”, research on home reading and the wisdom of Indigenous communities. Expected outcomes include salient intervention and advances in Indigenous education. Benefits are identifying interventions enhancing Indigenous literacy, oral language and self-concept, and delivering successful Indigenous-led research to address community-identified needs.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 5201 - Applied and Developmental Psychology. Lead: Prof Rhonda Craven

Enabling the future of the Australian collider physics program. The project aims to fund the continuation of Australia’s very successful experimental particle physics program to explore how the universe works at its fundamental level. We interrogate subatomic matter at the energy frontier at CERN's Large Hadron Collider and the intensity frontier at Japan's SuperKEKB collider. The basic contributions required for Australian membership of these two key programs will enable scientists to continue capitalising on decades of hard work and accumulated expertise, significant project outcomes and benefits include: access for Australia to advanced instruments and international research facilities; training of the next generation of researchers in detector construction and operation; and a rich science program.. Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 5107 - Particle and High Energy Physics. Lead: Prof Paul Jackson

Low-Cost Carbon Materials from Agricultural Biomass for Battery Anodes. Agricultural biomass is an abundant, renewable, low-cost carbon source for producing sustainable products. This project aims to convert renewable agricultural biomass into sustainable low-cost carbon materials for high performance sodium ion battery applications. It will generate new knowledge and low-cost innovative approaches for large-scale synthesis of carbon materials from agricultural biomass. Expected outcomes include advanced multi-product biorefinery and manufacturing technologies and enhanced capacity for research collaborations. These outcomes will accelerate the development of a new, low-carbon manufacturing industry for producing sustainable chemicals and carbon materials from agricultural biomass in regional Australia.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4004 - Chemical Engineering. Lead: Prof Zhanying Zhang

Advancing Digital Innovation in the Australian Live Performance Sector. This project will advance digital adoption and best practice (such as live stream, AR/VR, AI) for the benefit of the live performance sector. Post COVID-19, there is an urgent need to grow audiences, to reach diverse and remote communities and broaden the impact of the proven benefit of arts and culture to well-being. In partnership with nine of Australia’s leading performing arts institutions, the research will establish a picture of current digital performance and co-design exemplars for practice, policy settings and scholarship. Through a qualitative, multi-method approach the research will generate resources for industry, case studies, policy reports for Creative Australia, scholarly and media articles and convene two signature events.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 3604 - Performing Arts. Lead: Dr Elizabeth Gibbs

Mitigating disinfection by-products - are we creating more toxic chemicals? Disinfection is an essential barrier to pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water. However, disinfectants such as chlorine can react with natural precursors in water to produce toxic disinfection by-products (DBPs). This presents a complex challenge for water utilities as some mitigation strategies can unintentionally produce more toxic DBPs. This project aims to refine water treatment strategies to minimise formation of toxic DBPs in drinking water. The project will combine advanced chemical and bioassay methods to evaluate DBP formation and toxicity. The outcomes will enable water utilities to identify treatment processes to reduce DBP formation and toxicity, thus ensuring ongoing provision of safe drinking water for all Australians.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4004 - Chemical Engineering. Lead: Prof Frederic Leusch

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

The Australian Emulation Network Phase 2 - Extending the Reach. This project aims to extend the reach of the Australian Emulation Network, conserving born digital artefacts and making them accessible for research purposes. High value collections from university archives and the GLAM sector requiring legacy computer environments will be targeted. The project expects to generate new knowledge across media arts, design, and architecture. Expected outcomes include stabilising and providing researchers with emulated access to born digital cultural artefacts, sharing legacy computer environments across the network, and expanding the Australian software preservation Community of Practice, building skills in preserving and emulating digital cultural artefacts across an expanded set of domains and institutions.. Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 3605 - Screen and Digital Media. Lead: Prof Melanie Swalwell

Regional and Urban Greenhouse Gas Emission Detection (RUGGED) . The facility proposed here will establish a network of sun-sensing spectrometers for detection of changes in atmospheric composition. The instruments can be deployed to regions or facilities of interest to capture the total change of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to these regions or facilities, for example at urban scales, or areas of intense natural or anthropogenic emissions or uptake. The greenhouse gas quantification system will provide valuable independent estimates of emissions, to enable verification of bottom-up greenhouse gas inventories and satellite-based estimates of emissions... Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 3702 - Climate Change Science. Lead: A/Prof Nicholas Deutscher

A platform for in situ structural biology. This project aims to establish an Australian facility for in situ structural biology. The Arctis cryo-plasma focused ion beam will enable cryo-electron microscopy on a large range of samples from bacteria, plants, animal cells, tissues and organs to soft materials. This project expects to reveal new structural information in situ generating knowledge in the fields of microbiology, cell and developmental biology and in bioengineering and materials science. Expected outcomes are fundamental discoveries, training opportunities, international collaborations, and high impact publications. This project should provide significant benefits through underpinning innovation in renewal energy generation and storage, drug delivery, and nanotechnology.. Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Prof Georg Ramm