Grants & Opportunities

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

Building Deep Debate Evidence Systems for Youth Crime Policy Reform. This project aims to develop a reliable, equitable, and explainable deep evidence system to contribute to global debates on youth crime policy. This project expects to enhance transparency and fairness, aligned with Australian justice priorities, by mitigating bias and misinformation and ensuring legislative changes are backed by diversified evidence. Expected outcomes include AI-driven recommendations from scientific studies, public discourse, and social media via data engineering and data science. This should provide significant benefits to policymakers and communities promoting fairer justice reforms and strengthening Australia’s leadership in data governance by ensuring policy decisions are based on comprehensive, verifiable evidence.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4605 - Data Management and Data Science. Lead: Dr Thanh Tam Nguyen

Investigating professional learning lives in the digital evolution of work. This project aims to investigate learning practices of professionals working in professions effected by digitalisation. The project expects to generate new knowledge about how professionals’ learning practices shape and are being shaped by evolving work practices. Expected outcomes of the project include new conceptual thinking about professional learning, and a contemporary and nuanced evidence base to inform innovative teaching and learning solutions for individuals, workplaces and education providers; particularly higher education. This project should provide significant benefits for a national policy on lifelong learning to address Australia’s agile skills development needs. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1301 - Education Systems. Lead: Prof Shirley Agostinho

A home-centred approach to support children and young people in state care. This project aims to determine how conceptions of home can enhance an understanding of and responsiveness to young people’s needs in state care. It expects to generate novel data on home for young people in state care and for the first time develop a home-centred approach to supporting young people across multiple care contexts. Expected outcomes include developing and evaluating home-centred care principles, practice guidelines and an online training module. These should provide benefits including better experiences and placement stability for young people, effective training for carers and evidence-informed strategies guiding the work of service providers and governments, with the potential to improve young people's life chances. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1607 - Social Work. Lead: Dr Kate Seymour

The impact of urban vertical schools on students’ capability and wellbeing. Urban vertical schools are new types of schools in Australia. There are no evidence-based Australian precedents to guide designers or educators, no formal knowledge sharing processes that draw on experiences of pioneers, and little understanding of what these spaces mean for student capability and wellbeing. This evaluative case study will bring together evidence from designers, educators and students in three newly built urban, vertical schools. Project findings will point to inclusive principles for designing and leading in physical, digital and social school spaces to maximise student wellbeing and capability. Insights into student experiences in urban, vertical school spaces will have value for infrastructure spending in all schools.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 1301 - Education Systems. Lead: Prof Jillian Willis

The internationalisation of nationalist populism. This project aims to explain the rising international cooperation between nationalist populists in democracies across the world. It expects to generate new knowledge about how and why these forces now work together to oppose common targets such as multilateral institutions, free trade and liberal democracy. Expected outcomes of this project include a sophisticated, evidence-based understanding of the dynamics and effects of contemporary nationalist populist cooperation. Given Australia's commitment to promoting good governance and strong democratic institutions, in addition to the interest overseas nationalist populists have shown in helping likeminded movements in Australia, the project will provide significant benefits for policymakers.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 1606 - Political Science. Lead: Prof Duncan McDonnell

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

Understanding macroeconomic fluctuations with unobserved networks. Whilst empirical evidence suggests that firm-level shocks can have large aggregate effects, via network connections, macroeconomic policies have mostly an aggregate nature. This project aims to build a new framework to disentangle aggregate shocks from shocks to individual units. The major innovations are i) to infer the network from the data and ii) to jointly estimate aggregate factors and network effects. Expected outcomes are i) measures of systemic risk and ii) a theoretical framework to study the optimality of aggregate versus sectoral stabilization policies. Benefits include a better understanding of macroeconomic fluctuations in Australia and proposed economic policies to mitigate large and persistent declines in employment and GDP.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1402 - Applied Economics. Lead: Prof Valentyn Panchenko

Public Interest Advocacy in Australian Policymaking. The project aims to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of public interest advocacy, via the media, in elevating the responsiveness of elected political elites. The project expects to generate new knowledge about how the advocacy and media agendas are set, examine the way elected elites access and ingest news media, and conditions under which advocacy groups access to news changes political priorities. It is expected that the project will provide an evidence base for citizens and policy makers to assess the effectiveness of public interest advocacy, and deliver benefits such as strengthening the quality of Australia’s representative democracy, and offer scholars new theories on the role of public interest advocacy on policy priorities.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1606 - Political Science. Lead: Prof Darren Halpin

Towards a Green and Sustainable Energy-efficient Metaverse. This project aims to establish a world-class facility for conducting research on green and sustainable energy-efficient metaverse technologies. The metaverse is widely anticipated as the next technological breakthrough that will revolutionise the way we interact, learn, work, shop and entertain in the new digital economy. However, metaverse technologies, including virtual reality, AI, big data, cybersecurity and blockchains, require a tremendous amount of computation and energy to serve millions of concurrent users. The proposed facility is expected to support the development of energy-efficient algorithms and systems for the metaverse, and establish Australia’s leadership in this emerging area of major economic and societal impact.. Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 4604 - Cybersecurity and Privacy. Lead: Prof Willy Susilo

Australian Experiences of Algorithmic Culture on TikTok. This project is the first to systematically investigate how algorithmic content recommendation is shaping everyday Australian cultural experience over time, in the particular context of TikTok—the digital platform where Australians spend the most time online. The project provides critical evidence to support the government's ongoing policy initiatives intended to regulate the activities of digital platforms. Its methodological innovations directly address the challenges of studying commercial platforms' recommender systems through a mixed-method research design combining computational and qualitative analysis, bridging universal and individual perspectives and introducing ‘citizen science’ approaches to the field of platform studies.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4701 - Communication and Media Studies. Lead: Prof Patrik Wikstrom

Economic analysis of child maltreatment and child protection. This project aims to investigate the economic causes and consequences of child maltreatment. It expects to generate new knowledge by applying microeconometric methods to large Australian administrative databases that track children’s health, education and welfare receipt over time. The expected outcomes of this project include an expanded knowledge base on how economic shocks affect maltreatment, the economic consequences of placing children in out-of-home care, and the value of economic policies for reducing the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment. This should provide significant benefits, such as providing practical evidence to policy makers and service providers that help prevent child maltreatment and reduce its harms.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3801 - Applied Economics. Lead: A/Prof Nicole Black

Informing intervention responses to violent offenders through data linkage. The project aims to capitalise on new data access capacity to improve knowledge on violent offender pathways and criminogenic needs, such as acquired brain injury, to reduce offending and re-offending. Violence is a major social and health issue nationally and internationally. While there has been substantial investment in treatment/prevention campaigns, rates of violence remain high. Using diverse linked administrative data, we will identify key risk factors and times in trajectories, as well as effective treatment/justice responses. Expected benefits include evidence-based recommendations and engagement with policymakers targeting recidivism, offender screening, treatment, and coordinated violence prevention policy and practice.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 5205 - Social and Personality Psychology. Lead: Prof Peter Miller

ARC Research Hub for Infrastructure Net Zero. The NetZero Hub aims to transform Australia's construction sector through digitalising the infrastructure lifecycle for net-zero, targeting challenges like excessive carbon emissions and outdated practices, which currently impede sustainability. In line with Australia's 2030 Digital Economy Strategy, the Hub utilises infrastructure digital twins, integrated with low-carbon materials, eco-friendly structural designs, and state-of-the-art operation and maintenance methods to reinvent the performance and profitability of the infrastructure industry, a critical national economic and employment sector. It will help Australia meet its commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, and drive a data-driven sustainable industrial revolution. . Scheme: Industrial Transformation Research Hubs. Field: 4005 - Civil Engineering. Lead: Prof Wenhui Duan

The History of Human Rights and Technological Change. This project aims to investigate the history of the relationship between human rights and technological change. After 1945, technological advancement was recognised as a source of both peril and promise for freedom, peace, and welfare. The nature of that balance is presently a source of fierce community controversy. This project’s anticipated outcomes will include a detailed historical account of preceding dislocations between rights and technology suitable for policymakers, as well as more public interest focused interventions in policy debates. By placing present-day digital disruptions in this longer perspective, it seeks to provide another framework for considering risks and benefits to the community. . Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 4303 - Historical Studies. Lead: Dr Roland Burke

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

Understanding social-ecological feedbacks in protected area resilience. The project aims to describe, quantify and understand feedbacks between societies and ecosystems, both in and adjacent to protected areas. Using the Coupled Infrastructure Systems Framework to describe and quantify system structure, it will collect empirical data from 40 protected areas and progress from statistical analysis to empirical simulation models of feedbacks. Models of feedbacks will be used to clarify influences on protected area resilience. The project will improve understanding of how to efficiently monitor social-ecological dynamics and enhance protected area resilience to climate change and other shocks. Insights resulting from the analysis will support protected area governance and management in Australia and South Africa.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4104 - Environmental Management. Lead: Prof Graeme Cumming

Help wanted: The Dynamics of AI-Driven Recruitment and Selection. The increasing use of AI in the recruitment and selection of job candidates is widely acknowledged but not well understood. AI-enabled recruitment offers substantial value to employers but has a significant and unchecked influence on job-seekers. This project will explore how AI capability is developed by technology vendors, deployed by recruiters, and utilised by job candidates. Findings from three integrated studies will build new theoretical understandings of the social and technical implications of AI-enabled recruitment. Benefits include the development of governance principles, industry practice standards, and strategies to assist job-seekers, that promote transparency, privacy and equality in the Australian labour market.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3505 - Human Resources and Industrial Relations. Lead: Prof Paula McDonald

AI-Empowered ESG Data Analytics in Responsible Investment. This project aims to enhance the effectiveness of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) analysis by leveraging advanced AI and data management to improve risk assessment, performance forecasting, and report generation in responsible investment. By addressing challenges such as complex data and evolving ESG demands, this project will empower investors to make more sustainable choices. Expected outcomes include innovative AI and data management tools that provide more accurate and timely ESG analysis, fostering sustainable development and social responsibility. Additionally, the project will promote global knowledge exchange, talent development, and public awareness of the importance of responsible and transparent business practices.. Scheme: Early Career Industry Fellowships. Field: 4605 - Data Management and Data Science. Lead: Dr Zhengyi Yang

Understanding health care labour markets to improve population health. The health workforce is essential for the routine operations of healthcare systems, the adoption of innovations, and sustainability during crises. However, the uneven distribution of health professionals leads to shortages, surpluses, patient harm, and burnout among health professionals. This research uses new longitudinal data on all Australian doctors and nurses to study the effects of policy changes and labour market shocks on recruitment, retention, workforce participation, health outcomes, and the well-being of health professionals. By combining labour economics and micro-econometrics with policy insights, this project aims to generate new evidence for more innovative health workforce planning.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3801 - Applied Economics. Lead: Prof Anthony Scott

Enhancing Social Prescribing. The project aims to enable the integration, long-term adoption, and scalability of social prescribing into Australia’s social system. Social prescribing links people to non-medical services and supports to improve their wellbeing and quality of life. The program will co-design evidence-based infrastructure to support long-term adoption and scalability. Expected outcomes include a secure data hub, enhanced evidence-based social prescribing programs to enable optimised resource allocation, and improved consistency of social services. Given the established cost-effectiveness of social prescribing, significant anticipated benefits include reduced welfare and economic burdens, as well as increased social connection and community wellbeing. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4409 - Social Work. Lead: Dr Rosanne Freak-Poli

Dynamics of Partisanship and Polarisation in Online Public Debate. Rapidly increasing partisanship and polarisation, especially online, poses an urgent threat to societal cohesion in Australia and other established western democracies; polarisation is also a critical cybersecurity concern when actively promoted by bad-faith actors to undermine citizens’ trust in democratic institutions. By introducing an analytical framework that distinguishes four key dimensions of polarisation, the Fellowship aims to conduct the first-ever assessment of the extent and dynamics of polarisation in the contemporary online and social media environments of six nations, including Australia. The evidence is expected to enable an urgently needed, robust defence of our society and democracy against the challenges of polarisation.. Scheme: Australian Laureate Fellowships. Field: 2001 - Communication and Media Studies. Lead: Prof Axel Bruns

ARC Training Centre for Next-Gen Technologies in Biomedical Analysis . The Centre for Next-Gen Technologies in Biomedical Analysis will deliver workforce trained in the development of transformative technologies that will rapidly expand the Australian pharmaceutical, diagnostic and defence sector. The university-industry partnership will increase Australia’s manufacturing capability by fast tracking screening, by integrating 3D printing, advanced sensing, big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence for the delivery of optimal solutions in diagnosis, treatment and wellbeing. The centre will deliver training in Industry 4.0 skills which will boost early-stage scale-up and accelerate the sector’s supply chain, which is pivotal for the Australian industries to maintain a competitive edge. . Scheme: Industrial Transformation Training Centres. Field: 0301 - Analytical Chemistry. Lead: Prof Killugudi Swaminatha-Iyer

Redesigning apartment policy standards for health and wellbeing. This project aims to examine the impact of apartment design standards on residents’ health and wellbeing. It seeks to (1) identify a refined set of evidence-informed quantifiable policy standards that protect residents’ health and wellbeing; and (2) evaluate their uptake by industry and barriers to implementation. Many design standards are based on intuition and experience rather than empirical evidence, and little is known about whether the standards and thresholds stipulated are sufficient to support health. Expected outcomes include tailored policy-specific recommendations for design policy and the planning of apartment precincts. Benefits include the delivery of convivial, equitable, healthy and sustainable apartment housing.. Scheme: ARC Future Fellowships. Field: 1205 - Urban and Regional Planning. Lead: Dr Sarah Foster

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