Grants & Opportunities

Illuminating the dark neutrophil glycoproteome. This project aims to shed light on the highly complex and dynamic sugar-coated surfaces of neutrophil white blood cells critical for the cell communication and function of our innate immune system. The project expects to generate molecular-level insights into neutrophil biology by detailing the structure, formation, regulation, interactions and functions of these cell-surface sugars across the varied neutrophil life stages using systems glycobiology approaches. The project will map the extensive sugar remodelling on and in the neutrophil and reveal new sugar-mediated mechanisms governing key immune processes. This project will benefit the community by expanding our knowledge of fundamental processes underpinning our innate immune system.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 0601 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Prof Morten Andersen

Linking Stress Tolerance to Molecular Evolution of Grass Stomata. Salinity and drought are two detrimental environmental stresses, affecting agricultural productivity and ecosystem health in Australia and around the world. This project will focus on the evolutionary, physiological and molecular aspects of stomatal regulation between wheat, barley and their wild relatives for salinity and drought tolerance. This project will advance the scientific knowledge in the evolution of stomatal regulation in two staple crops wheat and barley. The project will also assist plant breeders with increasing crop salinity and drought tolerance for global food security.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 0607 - Plant Biology. Lead: Prof Zhong-Hua Chen

Regulating and countering structural inequality on digital platforms. This project aims to find legal, ethical, technical, and commercial opportunities to counter inequality online. It uses machine learning and custom data collection tools to create new knowledge about how digital platforms—including search engines, social media, peer economy, and news platforms—can help to tackle misogyny, racism, and other forms of structural discrimination. It uses this knowledge to investigate the extent to which private sector digital platforms can be expected to monitor and regulate the actions of their users, what responsibilities they have to avoid contributing to discrimination, hatred, intolerance and abuse, and how the law should develop to ensure that our digital environment is more equal and fair. . Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 1801 - Law. Lead: Prof Nicolas Suzor

Scalable and Robust Bayesian Inference for Implicit Statistical Models. This project aims to develop the next generation of efficient methods for fitting complex simulation-based statistical models to data. Practitioners and scientists are interested in such implicit models to enable discoveries, produce accurate predictions and inform decisions under uncertainty. However, the associated computational cost has restricted researchers to implicit models that must have a small number of parameters and be well specified, impeding scientific progress. This project will develop new computational methods and algorithms for implicit models that scale to high dimensions and are robust to misspecification. Benefits will arise from the more routine use of implicit models in epidemiology, biology, ecology and other fields.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 0104 - Statistics. Lead: Prof Christopher Drovandi

Counting a Sixth Mass Extinction. This project aims to investigate how values shape conservation science and policy by utilizing a feminist philosophy of science approach. This project expects to generate new biodiversity assessments by adjusting the cultural lenses through which species are counted and conservation status is assigned. Expected outcomes of this project include the creation of an interactive global biodiversity map, in which data changes when values change, which will reveal biodiversity trends, species, conservation risks and opportunities that currently remain outside conservation attention. This should provide significant benefits to biodiversity, by opening space for diverse values to broaden the scope of conservation science, ethics, and policy.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 2203 - Philosophy. Lead: Dr Arian Wallach

Painting Country: the life and legacy of western Arnhem Land rock painters. This project aims to generate new understandings of Australia’s past by exploring the lives and legacies of known Aboriginal rock art artists. It addresses key questions in global archaeology relating to when, where and why rock art was created. Using innovative methodologies, this project intends to create a unique archive of 20th century rock art and oral history recordings from western Arnhem Land. The anticipated outcomes will include new internationally significant knowledge concerning the impacts of colonisation on artistic practices in Australia. Furthermore, the project aims to contribute new information and data that can be used to inform cultural heritage management and education programs both locally and across Australia. . Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 2101 - Archaeology. Lead: A/Prof Sally May

Digital and data literacies for sexual health policy and practice. New digital practices present significant challenges for the fields of sexual health promotion and sexual healthcare provision. This Fellowship brings sexual health policy-makers and professionals into dialogue with young adult users of digital apps and social platforms, via participatory co-design methods. Outcomes include theoretical and applied frameworks for digital literacy and data literacy in the context of sexual health. Outputs include knowledge-translation resources for sexual health professionals that will help them better engage with young adult’s everyday practices of digitally mediated intimacy, in the context of broader understandings of content moderation and regulation, platform governance, data privacy and data security. . Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 2001 - Communication and Media Studies. Lead: Prof Katherine Albury

Diving into deep-time: macroevolutionary patterns of aquatic tetrapods. This project aims to compare and contrast the broad-scale evolutionary patterns of the disparate lineages of aquatic tetrapod (e.g. whales, penguins, plesiosaurs). This project expects to generate new knowledge by utilising cutting-edge methods from several fields, e.g. three-dimensional scans, phylogenetic comparative methods and functional morphology. Expected outcomes include multiple high-quality publications and the development of new local and international collaborations. This will provide significant benefits, including revealing aquatic tetrapod evolution on an unprecedented scale and a better understanding of how some of Australia’s most iconic animals respond to global change, helping inform eco-tourism and conservation policies.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0603 - Evolutionary Biology. Lead: Dr Travis Park

Donkey Politics: How China’s Belt & Road shapes everyday life in Pakistan. This project will develop a socio-cultural understanding of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), through an ethnographic examination of the donkey trade with China. The research will produce fine-grained data on the impacts of the massive export of donkeys on the work, livelihoods, and health-seeking behaviour of marginalised populations in Pakistan. Expected outcomes include enhanced understanding of Chinese mega projects on host countries. It will benefit Australian and international policymakers seeking to develop a grounded understanding of BRI and its broader implications for the Indo-Pacific region, including the risk of zoonotic diseases associated with animal trade.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 1601 - Anthropology. Lead: A/Prof Muhammad Kavesh

Inside Others: Early Christian Protagonists and their Impairments. This project aims to uncover how disability functions in the portraits of key early Christian figures and their receptions over time. Its innovative approach combines disability studies, emotions studies, literary criticism, social history, and reception studies. It expects to generate new knowledge by intervening in disability readings of late antique literature, introducing a new category of impaired protagonists and constructing the first reception history of disability in early Christianity. It intends to enhance Australia’s capacity in interdisciplinary studies of antiquity and contribute to critical reflection on the nature of impairment in light of urgent questions arising from the Disability Royal Commission and Covid-19 measures.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 2204 - Religion and Religious Studies. Lead: A/Prof Kylie Crabbe

Message sticks: Long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia. Message sticks are marked wooden objects that were once used throughout Indigenous Australia to convey important information between communities. The intended outcome of this project is to answer a central question: What role did message sticks play in Indigenous long-distance communication? Drawing on archival evidence and original fieldwork in the Top End, the project aims to be the first empirically grounded study of message sticks as a practice. The project expects to define message sticks as a class of material culture, explain their communicative dynamics, generate new cross-cultural insights, and strengthen collaborations between research institutions, museums and Indigenous cultural organisations. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 1601 - Anthropology. Lead: Dr Piers Kelly

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from Australian farm dams. There is an untapped potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from millions of Australian farm dams. This project aims to quantify the nation-wide carbon footprint of farm dams and develop low-cost strategies for “greener” practices. Contributing to Australia’s commitment to tackle climate change, this project aspires to empower farmers to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of their farm dams. It will also inform on the economic viability of alternative management strategies for mitigating farm dam emissions and provide recommendations for financial incentives. This project should enhance the capacity of Australia to meet its carbon reduction targets and mitigate anthropogenic climate change.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management. Lead: Dr Martino Edoardo Malerba

Efficient privacy-preserving proofs for secure e-government and e-voting. Electronic systems are becoming increasingly widespread and crucial to social and economic wellbeing. This project aims to ensure that e-government, e-health, e-commerce and e-voting are secure and trustworthy by inventing new ways to verify these systems without infringing privacy. This project expects to use innovative techniques from cryptography to support development of trustworthy systems. Expected outcomes of this project include better support for organisations to build trustworthy systems that will maximise benefit to Australian business and society. This should provide significant commercial, reputational, and societal benefits by avoiding disruptions to the organisations and their clients if and when they are attacked. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0803 - Computer Software. Lead: Dr Thomas Haines

Life without Birth: The Ethics, Politics, and Law of Artificial Wombs. This project aims to assess the morality of ectogenesis, the process of gestating a foetus in an artificial womb. Recent technological advances in non-human ectogenesis raise the question of whether it is desirable to pursue research in human ectogenesis. This project expects to generate new knowledge in social philosophy by inquiring into the value of natural gestation, the foundations of parenthood, and the interests of foetuses during gestation. Expected outcomes of this project include an improved understanding of the costs, risks, and benefits of ectogenesis. This should provide significant benefits, such as resources for ethical decision-making in light of technologies aimed at radically reshaping the process of human creation. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 2203 - Philosophy. Lead: A/Prof Luara Ferracioli

No place like home? A phenomenology of racialised non-belonging. Racism is a persistent problem in Australian society, yet its existential effects remain inadequately understood. This project aims to develop a new understanding of racism’s deep impact on one’s sense of self, and sense of place. The project seeks to use the emerging framework of critical phenomenology to illuminate different experiences of racialised non-belonging. Expected outcomes include an improved understanding of the ontological significance of feeling not at home in one’s environs, or in one’s own body. This expanded understanding will provide significant benefits by helping to motivate and guide more robust models of anti-racism in public life, leading to a more racially just society.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 2203 - Philosophy. Lead: Dr Helen Ngo

Determining the regulation of ovary development with single cell sequencing. This project will greatly advance our understanding of ovary development and mammalian reproduction. I will investigate the process of ovarian primordial follicle activation including its genetic regulation, the importance of supportive granulosa cells and the biological significance of regulatory factors. This will be achieved through the comprehensive investigation of a single cell transcriptomic dataset of ovarian development (Aim 1) in conjunction with functional studies (Aim 2). The outcomes of which will hold significant benefit to animal reproduction through new strategies to improve livestock productivity and control invasive pest species. These outcomes are of economic and environmental and benefit nationally.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0608 - Zoology. Lead: Dr Jessie Sutherland

Re-imagining Humanities through Indigenous Creative Arts. This project will develop an Indigenous Creative Arts Framework to reimagine and transform the Humanities across Australian Universities. It will engage Indigenous creative arts academics, scholars, curators, practitioners and communities to conceptualise new innovations in teaching, research, community engagement and ethics. This project will centre critical Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing; contribute new Indigenous research methodologies and restorative practices; and reframe knowledge through creative arts praxis. Such innovative and dynamic advances in research will recognise and grow Indigenous capacity building across the Humanities, as vital to cultural wellbeing for all Australians. . Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 2002 - Cultural Studies. Lead: A/Prof Ali Baker

Making Australia resilient to airborne infection transmission. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that basic questions regarding how to minimise the risk of airborne infection transmission for any respiratory viruses remain unanswered, despite their frequency and huge social and economic costs. Therefore, this project aims to expand scientific knowledge and develop practical tools to improve the resilience of Australian indoor environments against airborne transmission of respiratory viruses. The outcomes of the project conducted by a multidisciplinary international team of collaborators will include: (i) quantitative knowledge on virus-laden aerosols from human expiration; and (ii) exposure and infection risk models and their application to typical indoor building and transport scenarios.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1117 - Public Health and Health Services. Lead: Prof Lidia Morawska

Discovering the origin of gravitational waves. This project aims to discover the astrophysical origin of gravitational waves. This project expects to calculate the properties of neutron stars and black holes in binaries, using state-of-the-art simulations performed on the largest Australian supercomputers. Expected outcomes of this project include comparisons between gravitational-wave observations and theory using advanced statistical and machine learning techniques, providing new and unique insights into the most massive stars in the Universe. This project should provide significant benefits such as answering key questions about the Universe, cementing Australia's place in the international astronomical community and inspiring and training future generations of Australia's workforce.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0201 - Astronomical and Space Sciences. Lead: Dr Simon Stevenson

Engineering safer pastures for livestock. This project aims to develop subterranean clover with elevated condensed tannins in leaves. This important pasture legume is currently a bloat risk for cattle and sheep due to low condensed tannins and high soluble proteins. Bloat is a health issue that costs the Australian and New Zealand livestock industries over $200 million per annum. Condensed tannins can reduce bloat, decrease methane production and improve efficiency of production. A novel approach using CRISPR and other innovative molecular techniques will generate breeding lines high in condensed tannins and deliver knowledge applicable to other pasture legumes. Expected outcomes for livestock producers include improved animal welfare, reduced carbon emissions and enhanced profits.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1001 - Agricultural Biotechnology. Lead: Prof Jacqueline Batley

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

Beyond the limits of corrosion detection in inaccessible areas. The project will develop a new technology for medium-range corrosion mapping in inaccessible areas of infrastructure. This will overcome the limitations of existing corrosion inspection techniques for corrosion inspection at inaccessible areas. The project will create a new concept and generate new knowledge on accurate corrosion mapping in inaccessible areas. The expected outcomes are significant improvements in the capability and practicability over existing corrosion inspection technologies adopted by industry for a wide range of infrastructure, in particular the Oil and Gas, Mining, Energy and Water infrastructure, as well as improving the reliability and cost-efficiency of the corrosion inspection.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0905 - Civil Engineering. Lead: Prof Ching Tai Ng

A Novel Inline High-Efficiency Motor/Pump System. Around 19% of the world’s and 30% of the Australia’s electric energy is consumed by pump technologies. Significant energy savings are possible if the major components of pump systems, including inverter, motor and pump, operate at their maximum possible efficiency under varying loads. A novel pump design in this project accommodates integrated electronics in a submersible housing. A seal-less design helps mitigate several aspects of pump failure and its in-line structure reduces assembly cost. Accurately measured efficiency maps will be utilised to demonstrate the non-linear relationship between motor and pump quantities as well as developing models for indirectly estimating feedback quantities and achieving the highest system efficiency.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0906 - Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Lead: A/Prof Nesimi Ertugrul

GM Holden and the Mobilisation of Private Industry during World War II. Through a focus on General Motors Holden (GMH), this project aims to explain how Australian industry adapted, diversified, and developed new workforce skills during World War II. Its significance lies in expanding knowledge of GMH’s under-recognised role and impact on Australia’s industrial economy during a pivotal moment in the nation's history. In doing so, it will contribute to broader current discussions about the importance of maintaining Australian manufacturing industries and their capacity to adapt rapidly in times of crisis to meet national needs. The expected outcomes and benefits include the generation of new interpretive texts and exhibitions for libraries and museums, and building research capacity in early career researchers.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 2103 - Historical Studies. Lead: A/Prof Paul Sendziuk

Constructing a rich curriculum for all: ‘Insights into practice’ . Not all students in Australia have access to the same high quality curriculum. The curriculum is often differentiated in ways designed to make outcomes achievable for marginalised young people. While this is often well meant, it has worked against the interests of these young people by denying them from a young age the same levels of access to curriculum options as their peers. This narrows the range of their future opportunities. This project aims to provide the foundations for strategies that can be implemented by teachers, schools and systems to address this problem. This projects works closely with teachers to determine a framework that can encourage pedagogical approaches that make a rich curriculum accessible to all. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1302 - Curriculum and Pedagogy. Lead: Prof Martin Mills