Grants & Opportunities

Functional and structural dissection of the human replisome. This project aims to develop technology to visualise the structure and enzymatic activities of the human replisome, the multiprotein assembly that copies DNA before cell division. A combination of novel single-molecule and state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy will be used to define how the human replisome coordinates DNA synthesis during times of replication stress. Key outcomes of this project include development of novel molecular visualisation technologies, leading to the first molecular description of dynamic processes used by the human replisome. Benefits include improved understanding of a fundamental biological process that often malfunctions in cancers, development of novel methodology, and interdisciplinary training.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: Dr Jacob Lewis

New Frontiers in Large-Scale Polynomial Optimisation. Polynomial optimisation is ubiquitous in many areas of engineering and applied mathematics. The mathematical methods and algorithms used for polynomial problems of large size are not sufficiently developed, limiting their applicability for real-world problems. This project aims to develop a mathematical foundation and computational methods for large-scale polynomial optimisation. By using an innovative combination of a novel theory of algebraic geometry and convex optimisation, this project expects to generate new knowledge and tools for solving these problems. Anticipated outcomes include a new generation of large-scale optimisation technologies, providing significant benefit to Australia's industries and international research standing. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4903 - Numerical and Computational Mathematics. Lead: Dr Mareike Dressler

Towards Processing of Big Streaming Temporal Graphs. This project aims to develop efficient and scalable algorithms to process big streaming temporal graphs, which is in high demand for many data-intensive applications such as cybersecurity, crime monitoring, and e-marketing. In particular, I will investigate three most representative types of queries including vertex-based queries, path-based queries, and subgraph-based queries. Expected outcomes of this project include theoretical foundations and scalable algorithms to process big streaming temporal graphs as well as a system prototype for evaluation and to demonstrate the practical value. Success in this project should see significant benefits for many important applications such as cybersecurity, e-commerce, health and social analysis.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4605 - Data Management and Data Science. Lead: Dr Dong Wen

Serpent sensory innovation in the evolutionary transition from land to sea. This project aims to investigate the mechanisms underlying sensory adaptation, which underpins the behavioural capacity of animals to adapt to environmental change. This research will harness innovative phenotypic imaging and genomic sequencing, to study the coordinated changes among sensory systems in a range of ecologically diverse snakes. Expected outcomes include a large database of 3D digital anatomical models from Australian and international museum collections, and new knowledge on the genetic processes influencing sensory receptor evolution in vertebrates. The should provide significant benefits for conservation by using sensory adaptability as a framework for estimating potential extinction risk for vulnerable species.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3104 - Evolutionary Biology. Lead: Dr Jenna Crowe-Riddell

Understanding the role of cosmeceuticals in health, gender and ageing. Cosmeceuticals are a new category of product at the intersection of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals taken to prevent and treat the physical signs of ageing. This project aims to investigate the advertising, regulation and use of cosmeceuticals, drawing on an innovative theoretical approach and qualitative methods. This project expects to generate new knowledge on the relationship between cosmeceuticals and contemporary experiences of health, ageing and gender. Expected outcomes include recommendations to improve healthcare and regulation and public outputs to help consumers navigate anti-ageing imperatives. This should provide significant benefit by reducing consumer harms and the associated social, health and economic consequences.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4410 - Sociology. Lead: Dr Renae Fomiatti

A Made in Australia Model for Indigenous-State Treaty-Making. This project aims to address the key public law issues that must be resolved for the negotiation of treaties between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and Australian governments. This project expects to generate new knowledge about the legal, political, institutional, and other factors behind successful treaty-making in the comparative states of Canada and New Zealand and the legal capacity of Australian governments to engage in treaty-making. Expected outcomes of this project include the development of uniquely innovative and flexible ‘made in Australia’ models of treaty-making that are constitutionally viable. This should provide significant benefits, such as improving the likelihood of successful treaty processes.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4807 - Public Law. Lead: Dr Harry Hobbs

Reducing uncertainty in prediction of leaf respiration in a changing world. This project aims to advance our understanding of responses of carbon dioxide (CO2) release by leaf (leaf respiration) to sustained changes in CO2 and temperature. Leaf respiration in terrestrial forests releases yearly CO2 that is two to four times higher than CO2 emitted by human activities, but its response to climate change is not well understood. The project expects to generate new knowledge on mechanisms underlying responses of leaf respiration to these climate change variables, separately and combined. Expected outcome is to deliver criteria that enable dynamic changes in leaf respiration to be predicted in climate models. Results should benefit improved forecast of feedback between Australian forests' carbon cycling and climate.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3102 - Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Lead: Dr Mirindi Eric Dusenge

New Frontiers for Anonymous Authentication. The project aims to investigate the new concepts and constructions of anonymous authentication protocols, which can both fill existing research gap and address new challenges raised by new computing technologies. The expected outcomes are novel concepts and methods in constructing anonymous authentication protocols with enhanced functionalities and better efficiency. The project will contribute to safeguard cybersecurity for all Australians and provide significant benefits, such as advancing theoretical knowledge in the research field and enhancing privacy and security of all Australian online services.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4604 - Cybersecurity and Privacy. Lead: Dr Zuoxia Yu

Geothermal heat recovery and energy storage from underground mines. This project aims to investigate the technological aspects of re-using underground mines as a source for low-carbon heat extraction and storage – while simultaneously providing sustainable solutions for mine rehabilitation. Expected outcomes of this project include a framework to evaluate the viability of a mine-water system as a geothermal heat source; experimental and field exploration of the proposed technology; and strategies to optimise the heat extraction process. Overall, the research provides significant benefits for renewable-based energy transformation while minimising the adverse impacts of post-mining landscapes.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4019 - Resources Engineering and Extractive Metallurgy. Lead: Dr Wanniarachchige Pabasara Kumari

Developing Room-Temperature Liquid Metal Batteries for Safe Energy Storage. To overcome safety issues intrinsic to the prevalent solid metal anodes in battery technology, this project aims to develop room-temperature liquid metal batteries by employing liquid Sodium-Potassium alloy. Innovations will span the development of the electrode concept, interface-oriented electrolyte design guided by theory and experiment, and prototype battery cell examples to illustrate how high round-trip efficiencies at fast charging can be achieved over a prolonged time. The anticipated outcomes would transform battery technology concepts while providing a critical scientific basis for commercialisation. Further, the success of this project would help Australia realise its shift from traditional to emerging sustainable energy systems.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Shilin Zhang

Rethinking Mao’s China from a Global Economic Perspective: A History. The project examines how China was connected to the global economy through international trade and technology transfer during the period of Mao Zedong’s leadership (1949-1976). It will provide the first comprehensive historical account of Maoist China’s economic relationship with its major trade partners, including the Soviet Union and Japan, by analysing key archival documents in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and English. Expected outcomes include a new understanding of Maoist China as a part of the economic Cold War and the East Asian model of economic development. The project’s findings could benefit Australia by providing new insights into how China’s early policies under Mao shaped its present and future.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4303 - Historical Studies. Lead: Dr Koji Hirata

Robust Derivative-Free Algorithms for Complex Optimisation Problems. Mathematical optimisation gives a systematic way for optimal decision-making. This project aims to develop new mathematical tools for complex optimisation problems where limited problem information is available. It will generate new foundational theories for alternative optimisation tools, introducing substantial new capability and rigour to the discipline. The project will create significant new mathematical optimisation techniques and create world-leading and publicly available software. These new techniques and software may ultimately be able to solve some of the most complex optimisation problems in research and industry, such as improving long-term climate predictions and designing 3D-printed medical implants.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4903 - Numerical and Computational Mathematics. Lead: Dr Lindon Roberts

‘Like the Thunder’: Seeing Stories in the Gulf Country. This project investigates the nature of relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in the Gulf of Carpentaria. It will generate imaginative understandings of how new relations might have been built through the historical marriage of a Waanyi woman and Chinese man in the late gold rush era; consider the challenges of contemporary Aboriginal advocacy; and examine how storytelling allows us to understand the nature of relations. The outcomes will be presented in major works of fiction and non-fiction and a collection of scholarly essays. Cultural benefits include showing how storytelling helps reveal the essential nature of human relations, and how the capacity to remake relations is essential to intercultural reconciliation.. Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Prof Alexis Wright

Recirculating Indigenous traveling songs. This project aims to develop new understandings of how unrestricted Indigenous traveling songs have spread across vast geographic and linguistic boundaries in Australia, investigating ways these songs can contribute to greater social connectedness today. It intends to energise collaborative networks across Indigenous communities, language centres, and holding institutions around the world. Forging models to reinvigorate the performance of traveling songs across a wide and diverse range of interconnected localities, this project should advance the potential for Indigenous performance culture to contribute to language revitalisation, cultural identity, and the facilitation of cross-cultural diplomacy in national and international contexts.. Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Prof Clint Bracknell

Understanding and Combatting 'Dark Political Communication'. This project examines an emergent series of tactics used by political actors (i.e. politicians, lobbyists, political groups, etc.) that we are calling 'Dark Political Communication' (DPC). DPC differs markedly from existing, well-established modes of political communication, as it often involves the deliberate spread of disinformation, use of highly inflammatory language, antagonism towards the press and democratic institutions, as well as actions that seek to exacerbate social discord. In this project, we will provide the first-ever complete account of DPC tactics, and provide a series of recommendations to journalists about how their practice can best evolve to address this novel communication paradigm. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4701 - Communication and Media Studies. Lead: A/Prof Stephen Harrington

Fast Reconstruction and Real-time Rendering of Immersive Light Field Video. This project aims to develop new learning-based methods for reconstructing and rendering 3D immersive videos from multi-view 2D videos. The project expects to generate new knowledge in the areas of data mining, multimedia, pattern recognition and deep learning. Expected outcomes of this project include new deep neural networks to represent 3D videos, neural methods for high-fidelity video rendering and efficient 3D video reconstruction and rendering algorithms. This should provide significant benefits to a diverse range of practical applications, such as autonomous driving, virtual reality, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and many other 3D applications.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4605 - Data Management and Data Science. Lead: Prof Wei Xiang

Finding Australia’s Disabled Authors: Connection, Creativity, Community. This research project aims to explore disabled writers and disability more generally in Australian literature. As there is little awareness of the contribution that Australian authors with disability have made to literary culture, the project expects to generate new knowledge about how disabled people have forged their writing careers, and how their disability shapes their creative practice. The expected outcomes include a greater understanding of the diversity of Australian writers and literature, community engagement with disability, and support for emerging disabled writers. The project will provide significant benefits including a greater awareness of disability and the capacity to combat ableism and discrimination. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4705 - Literary Studies. Lead: Dr Jessica White

Counting neutrinos to per-mill accuracy. This Project aims to supply the most precise to-date calculation of a critical parameter in cosmology, the effective number of neutrinos, in the context of the standard model of particle physics. Crucial to the correct interpretation of cosmological observations, this parameter enables the reconstruction of the universe's timeline from which to infer its properties. The expected outcome is a number of 4-digit significance that can be used in all future cosmological computations/analyses. Besides raising Australia's international profile in basic science research, this project expects to provide significant societal benefits via the training of HDRs in advanced mathematical modelling and computing, transferable skills across many sectors.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 5107 - Particle and High Energy Physics. Lead: Prof Yvonne Wong

Investigating Energy Transfer Pathways in Lanthanoid Elements. This project aims to investigate fundamental aspects concerning the luminescent properties of compounds containing lanthanoid elements. These elements have extensive use in many high-tech applications, yet essential knowledge related to their properties is still quite limited. This project will elucidate in detail the origin of lanthanoid luminescence through a multidisciplinary approach combining synthetic chemistry and spectroscopy. The outcomes of this proposal will expand our limited knowledge in this field, underpinning the future development of novel materials for advanced applications. This will lead to significant economic benefit in Australia as new commercial applications relying on lanthanoid luminescence will be developed.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3402 - Inorganic Chemistry. Lead: Prof Massimiliano Massi

Characterisation of a novel disease immunity pathway in plants. This project aims to understand the mechanisms by which the novel signalling molecule, CAPE1, contributes to plant immunity. Studies to date have confirmed that CAPE1 inhibits plant diseases but it is unknown how. This project aims to provide a seminal advance to the field by elucidating how the peptide is generated, how it is perceived by the plant and the processes by which peptide contributes to plant defence. The expected outcomes of this project will include a detailed characterisation of a novel plant defence pathway as well the education and training of next generation of plant scientists. Achieving these outcomes would provide the basis for new innovative disease management strategies through the manipulation of this novel pathway.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3108 - Plant Biology. Lead: Prof Peter Solomon

Electrolyte and interface engineering of solid-state sodium batteries. This project aims to develop large-scale solid-state sodium-ion batteries exhibiting better safety compared to classic liquid electrolyte batteries without compromising on performance, thus addressing the significant issue of safety in batteries. This will be achieved by novel engineering of solid-state electrolytes and electrolyte-electrode interfacing by a fundamental understanding of sodium-ion transport using statistical and machine-learning techniques. Expected outcomes include an understanding of ion-transport mechanisms in batteries, delivery of advanced solid-state electrolytes with high ionic conductivity, and batteries with excellent performance and safety characteristics, which benefits Australia's environment and sustainability.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Dr Nana Wang

The capacity for exceptional brain repair in a novel rodent species. This project aims to provide a new and much-needed living tool for studying brain injury and repair. The project expects to generate new evidence of effective brain repair in a mammalian species, the spiny mouse. In particular, it will provide important knowledge of the cellular responses that coordinate to allow mammalian brain repair, revealing targets for future understanding and treatment. Expected outcomes include an in-depth characterisation of how neurons and non-neuronal cells (glia) contribute to brain repair, and the identification of new pathways or targets for mammalian brain repair. In the long-term this should provide significant benefits for future research focused on improving the lives of people affected by brain injury. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3209 - Neurosciences. Lead: Prof Mary Tolcos

Defining pathways that control T cell lifespan for long-term immunity. This project will investigate the cellular and molecular pathways regulating lifespan of tissue-resident memory T cells (Trm cells), a non-circulating T cell subset that play a crucial role in the frontline defence against infection. Significantly, how long Trm cells live is paramount to how long immunity is sustained. Using cutting-edge cellular and molecular techniques, the expected outcomes of this project include identification of the genes and processes that control lifespan. This should provide significant benefits in the basic knowledge of how longevity of immunity is regulated. This understanding will be useful for future immunotherapeutic applications, such as veterinary or human vaccines requiring maximal duration of immunity. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3204 - Immunology. Lead: Prof William Heath

The Dreamscape Project: Phenomenology and neurophysiology of dreams. The Dreamscape Project aims to discover the neural basis of dreaming. Building on the world’s largest database of sleep electroencephalograms (EEG) and associated dream reports, the project applies cutting-edge analyses of neural activity to resolve why each night, healthy adults alternate between unconscious sleep and vivid dreams. The results promise to shed light on the mystery of dreaming and help locate consciousness in the physical world. Expected outcomes include best-practice guidelines for dream research and a model of open data-sharing for consciousness science. Anticipated benefits include deeper understanding of how and why everyone dreams, the role of dreams in waking life, and their impact on sleep quality and well-being.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 5003 - Philosophy. Lead: Dr Jennifer Windt

Defining the biological boundaries to sustain extant life on Mars. Key challenges for life are access to water & energy, and in cold, arid environments trace gas chemotrophy is used by soil microbiomes to sustain life. Given the cold, hyper-arid conditions on the Martian surface are analogues to ice-free regions of Antarctica, atmospheric chemoautotrophic ecosystems are the most promising ecological model for Martian life in the present or recent past. This project is significant, as it aims to define the limits to energy, water and carbon production via trace gas chemotrophy. We will integrate biology with astrophysics to identify at which point life ceases. Expected outcomes include new knowledge on the biological envelope, with benefits to include the identification of Martian regions for exploration.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3107 - Microbiology. Lead: Prof Belinda Ferrari