Grants & Opportunities

ARC Research Hub for Functional and Sustainable Fibres. This Research Hub aims to expand Australia’s position in fibres, textiles and composites by developing next generation functional fibre materials and creating synergy between functionality and sustainability, two key attributes that have hitherto been mutually exclusive. The Hub will transform regional and national economies from traditional manufacturing to a vibrant future fibre oriented advanced manufacturing sector with functionality and sustainability as central tenets. Expected outcomes include industry adoption of novel fibre-based materials, processing and recycling technologies; creating jobs, significant environmental benefits, and positioning Australia at the front of a global shift towards functional and sustainable materials.. Scheme: Industrial Transformation Research Hubs. Field: 0912 - Materials Engineering. Lead: Prof Joselito Razal

Unlocking mine waste potential: carbon sequestration and metals extraction. This project aims to systematically investigate a proof-of-concept engineering process for transforming mine waste into value. The research will develop and employ state-of-the-art tools to advance our knowledge of efficiently sequestering carbon dioxide using ultramafic nickel mine tailings, while also enabling the extraction of critical metals—particularly nickel—and the production of value-added products, such as high-purity magnesium carbonate hydrate and silica. Successful outcomes from this research will provide benefits for mitigating global warming, supplying critical metals for renewable energy technologies, and facilitating the transition of Australia's mining industry towards sustainability.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4101 - Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation. Lead: Prof Fang Xia

Innovation in durable goods: expansion of electric cars in Australia. Highly desirable transition to environmentally friendly technologies such as electric automobiles requires well-designed governmental support. Short-sighted policies may lead to unintended consequences and do more harm than good. The importance of a secondary market for durable goods makes the policy design a complex dynamic problem. This project will produce mathematical and computational tools to explore potential regulation standards and stimulus programs in a simulated environment to find an optimal approach for expanding electric cars in Australia. Built on the team's groundbreaking research in modelling equilibria in markets for automobiles, this project will enable the search for optimal policy that will benefit Australian society.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3801 - Applied Economics. Lead: Prof Fedor Iskhakov

Unveiling Sulfur Reaction Pathways in All-Solid-State Li–S Batteries. All-solid-state lithium–sulfur batteries offer up to ten times the energy density of today's lithium-ion batteries while reducing material costs by over 30% through the use of abundant sulfur. This project aims to unlock their full potential by developing an advanced sulfur electrode material that enhances voltage stability and energy efficiency, ensuring optimal performance and reliability. Expected outcomes of this project include establishing the foundation for the development of longer-range electric vehicles and cost-effective renewable energy storage solutions. This should provide significant benefits, such as strengthening Australia’s battery manufacturing sector while promoting economic and environmental sustainability.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4004 - Chemical Engineering. Lead: Dr Borui Liu

Advanced Characterisation Facility for High Speed Quantum Devices. This project will provide critical new capabilities for the measurement and characterisation of advanced quantum devices and materials in a new multi-user Quantum Science and Industry Laboratory. It will leverage existing ARC and university funding to provide a unique new capability designed to serve the needs of users both from Australia's emerging quantum technology industries as well as academia. Expected outcomes include the creation of new intellectual property, local manufacturing of quantum control hardware, support for Australia's quantum industries, and training of researchers and workers for the burgeoning quantum technology sector which is predicted to generate $6 billion in revenue and create 19,400 jobs in Australia by 2045.. Scheme: Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities. Field: 5108 - Quantum Physics. Lead: Prof Alexander Hamilton

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

ARC Research Hub for Advanced Manufacturing with 2D Materials (AM2D). Australia holds large resources of critical 2D minerals – key enablers of several existing and emerging technologies in Energy Storage, Purification and Printed Electronics. The AM2D hub aims to provide a sophisticated environment for researchers and an industrial translation platform for manufacturers; a hub where leading academics, bright students, and industry partners come together to learn, apply, collaborate, innovate, and deliver industry transformation in advanced manufacturing. Anticipated outcomes include the transformation of newly discovered materials into globally traded, high-value 2D products, enabling Australian industries to capture more wealth and jobs from this large and growing market. . Scheme: Industrial Transformation Research Hubs. Field: 1007 - Nanotechnology. Lead: Prof Mainak Majumder

Green Water is Good: Control and Design of Low-Carbon Water Pumping Systems. This project aims to develop new theoretical tools for the control and design of low-carbon water pumping systems powered by renewable energy. One expected outcome is to establish advanced control frameworks that significantly reduce operational cost for water pumping systems and meanwhile produce the least carbon emissions. The control frameworks will integrate stochastic uncertainties of solar cloud cover, electricity price and water demand. The control frameworks will be incorporated into a two-stage constrained optimisation as a codesign strategy for future low-carbon water pumping systems. This project will gain significant economic, commercial and environmental benefits to the Australian community.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 0906 - Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Lead: Dr Ye Wang

ARC Research Hub for Carbon Utilisation and Recycling. This Research Hub aims to develop technologies to transform carbon dioxide emissions from our energy and manufacturing sectors into valuable products and create pathways to market to drive industry transformation. This hub aims to achieve this by developing novel electro, thermo, and biochemical methods for converting CO2 from sectors that cannot easily avoid emissions and a technological pathway for CO2 recycling. The outcomes of this Hub are likely to be transformative for industry, the economy, and society in moving the fate of CO2 from pollutant to feedstock. The benefits to Australia are intended to be the stimulation of a new industry, a skilled workforce for this emerging industry and a contribution to meeting CO2 reduction targets.. Scheme: Industrial Transformation Research Hubs. Field: 4004 - Chemical Engineering. Lead: Prof Paul Webley

Transforming Cultural & Natural Resource Management workforce capabilities. This project aims to implement a transformative program of transdisciplinary cultural and natural resource management and workforce development research in Northern Australia’s Arnhem Plateau region. This project expects to create new knowledge in the areas of cultural knowledges, wildfire, feral animal, invasive plants, mine-site rehabilitation, and climate change, as well as Indigenous training effectiveness. Expected outcomes of the project include practical learnings for application in broader Indigenous community/First Nations capability and supportive policy development contexts. The expected benefits are a long-term platform for enhancing cultural and environmental landscape management and sustainable employment opportunities.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management. Lead: Prof Jeremy Russell-Smith

Porous Tandem Catalyst for CO2 Conversion into Sustainable Chemicals. This project aims to develop new strategies to design and tune the performance of multifunctional catalysts for the conversion of carbon dioxide as a sustainable feedstock for the production of valuable commodity chemicals used in the manufacture of consumer products. New insights into reaction mechanisms, and relationships between catalyst structure and performance, are expected through innovative analytical tools. Anticipated outcomes include a toolkit of catalyst design principles, underpinning the development of next-generation catalysts with superior energy efficiency, waste minimisation, and associated socioeconomic benefits, which should contribute significantly to Australian science, industry and the environment. . Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 3406 - Physical Chemistry. Lead: Dr Helena Wang

ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space. ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space. This Centre aims to create on-demand, zero-waste, high-efficiency plants and plant products to address grand challenges in sustainability for Space and on Earth. Significant advances in plant, food, and sensory science; process and systems engineering; law and policy; and psychology are expected to deliver transformative solutions for Space habitation – and create enhanced plant-derived food and bioresources to capitalise upon emergent and rapidly expanding domestic and global markets. Anticipated outcomes include industry uptake of innovative plant forms, foods, technologies, and commodities; and an ambitious education and international co-ordination agenda to position Australia as a global leader in research supporting Space habitation.. Scheme: ARC Centres of Excellence. Field: 3108 - Plant Biology. Lead: Prof Matthew Gilliham

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

The Material Science of Biomimetic Soft Network Composites. Nature combines stiff and strong collagen fibres intertwined within a weak polymer matrix of proteoglycans into soft tissues with outstanding mechanical durability and biological properties. We converge a biomimetic design strategy inspired in the architecture of natural soft tissues and a novel additive manufacturing technology termed melt electrowriting (MEW) to manufacture advanced biomimetic soft network composites (BSNC). The SNCs are composed of a weak polymer matrix and a MEW reinforcing fibrous phase printed at the nanometre scale, containing patterns mimicking the natural tissue architectures. Advanced computational tools are applied for the rational design of the SNC while reducing costs and times associated to experimental work.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4003 - Biomedical Engineering. Lead: Prof Dietmar W. Hutmacher

Transforming Australian bio-based industries through multiscale modelling. Agricultural and forestry biomass can be converted into feedstocks for production of biofuels and biomaterials via synthetic biology. A key challenge is the complex biomass microstructure renders it highly resistant to conversion, and pretreatment is crucial for enhancing process efficiency. Micro-CT imaging will enable particle characterisation and identification of changes in the fibre composition during pretreatment. This information will be used to create a virtual biomass particle model for an in silico investigation to inform optimal process design. The framework will transform the way biomass is processed, contributing to the growth of the Australian bio-manufacturing industry by making it more productive, profitable and sustainable.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4903 - Numerical and Computational Mathematics. Lead: Em/Prof Ian Turner

Nanoengineered, Encapsulated Catalysts from Fly Ash Waste. This project aims to deliver advanced catalysts and novel catalyst synthesis methods from the use of iron-rich fly ash, an otherwise abundant valueless waste with projected steady growth across Australia and globally. The as-synthesised catalysts are expected to be applicable to and exhibit excellent activity in the production of green hydrogen and renewable bio-fuels from lignocellulosic waste. These efforts are significant and beneficial in restoring the manufacturing capability of Australian industry, driving Australian industry towards the development of a circular economy for the appropriate management of solid waste, as well as for a seamless introduction of renewable and clean energy sources to address the pressing climate change.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4004 - Chemical Engineering. Lead: Prof Lian Zhang

Fungi Power: Designer Fungal Cell Factories for Advanced Biomanufacturing. This project aims to build an advanced biomanufacturing platform based on filamentous fungi in collaboration with industry. Using synthetic biology, the project expects to engineer superior fungal host strains customisable to the needs of the industry and to address their technological gaps. The expected outcomes include the development of cost-efficient and sustainable fungal-based bioprocesses for the companies to produce products, such as fine chemicals, pharmaceutical actives and food ingredients. The project would provide significant benefits by enabling existing and emerging companies' commercial successes and competitiveness in global markets, creating new jobs and resulting in the growth of the bio-economy in Australia.. Scheme: Mid-Career Industry Fellowships. Field: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Lead: A/Prof Yit Heng Chooi

A next generation 'smart' superconducting magnet system in persistent mode. Superconducting magnet devices use splicing, a process required to maintain the persistence of operation. Currently, the formation mechanism of splicing using magnesium diboride superconductor is complex and not technologically robust for industrial magnet manufacturing. This project aims to develop novel, reliable and economical superconducting splicing technologies that can produce an ultra-stable and uniform magnetic field against unexpected power outages. Expected outcomes include the development of advanced green and cryogen free superconducting technologies, which would boost the Australian manufacturing industry through access to multi-billion-dollar global markets for power grids, medical imaging and energy generation and storage.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 5104 - Condensed Matter Physics. Lead: A/Prof Md.Shahriar Hossain

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

On the wealth of First Nations: Examining the Indigenous-settler wealth gap. This project aims to revise understandings of First Nations economic circumstances by investigating disparities between First Nations and non-Indigenous financial wealth. It expects to generate knowledge of the size of the ‘wealth gap’ and identify the structures that cause its contemporary reproduction and analyse policy options to address these disparities. Expected outcomes of the project include new knowledge about the Indigenous-settler wealth gap and the development of a research literature on approaches to addressing the wealth gap in Australia. This should provide significant benefits including a clearer understanding of the nature and causes of economic disparities between First Nations and non-Indigenous people in Australia.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4406 - Human Geography. Lead: Dr Francis Markham

Hybrid optimisation for coordinating autonomous trucks and drones. This project aims to build analytics for controlling a fleet of autonomous trucks and drones working in tandem to deliver retail goods and disaster relief. This project expects to develop new mathematical and artificial intelligence algorithms for routing and scheduling the vehicles and for directing the multi-modal transfer of goods between vehicles in real-time as traffic conditions change. Expected outcomes of this project include new theories and technologies that enable a central computer to remotely control the autonomous fleet for maximum efficiency. Benefits in transport and logistics include improved freight productivity through reducing costs and delivery times.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4903 - Numerical and Computational Mathematics. Lead: Dr Edward Lam

The Great Exhibitions and their Lost Indigenous Objects . This project will rediscover the Australian Indigenous objects sent overseas to the Great Exhibitions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such objects acted as powerful forms of cultural, political and economic display, and a form of imperial and colonial projection. It will excavate the hidden histories of Indigenous people involved in these events and the many objects lost to Australia. Through collaborative work at community dialogues, the project will repatriate knowledge and remake connections between objects, museums, and Indigenous people. In doing so, it will bring contemporary Indigenous perspectives to global attention, generate new exhibition possibilities and influence international museum practice.. Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Prof Gaye Sculthorpe

Resilient Remote Environment Emulation for Human-to-Machine Communication. Human-to-machine haptic communication allow humans to immersively interact with remotely-located robots/machines. Current networks cannot support its technical demands, thereby limiting the achievable human-machine distance. This project aims to develop cloudlet intelligence together with a programmable resilient network to realise reliable remote environment emulation, a concept where the physical environment at the remote machine is emulated close to the human. A key outcome will be the first reliable remote environment emulation platform that achieves vast human-machine distances on current networks. Enabling immersive human-machine experience will significantly benefit many sectors, from education through to industrial manufacturing.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4006 - Communications Engineering. Lead: Prof Elaine Wong

The Macroderma initiative: conserving ghost bats and informing development. This project aims to improve methods for capturing biological information required for environmental assessments of highly mobile species and enable strategic environmental planning in Northern Australia. Using Australia’s iconic ghost bat as a focus, the project will test and apply emerging technologies to obtain key information on a species’ population status and its critical resources to inform assessments of ecological impacts of industry development. Important benefits of the project include information and tools for streamlining development approvals and accurately assessing risks to threatened species to improve outcomes for both our economy and our natural environment.. Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4104 - Environmental Management. Lead: Prof Sam Banks

Sustainable Transformation of Agricultural Waste into High-Value Substrates. This project aims to transform agricultural waste into low-cost, high-quality substrates and soil amendment products for the agricultural industry using advanced sustainable release technology. This will be achieved by developing controlled-release cellulose-nanoclays with precision-tuned nutrient release and water retention, offering a sustainable and eco-friendly solution for mushroom cultivation and crop growth. The project is expected to create new commercial opportunities and advance local production of value-added agricultural products, foster a circular economy, and promote environmental sustainability. By advancing agricultural waste management, it will also help position Australia as a global leader in sustainable agriculture.. Scheme: Mid-Career Industry Fellowships. Field: 4016 - Materials Engineering. Lead: A/Prof Li Li