Grants & Opportunities

Judges' work, place and psychological health - a national view. This project aims to address the human, juridical and financial costs of judicial officers’ work-related psychological harm. This harm is implicated in early retirement, sick leave and suicide. It threatens appropriate courtroom conduct, procedural fairness and impartial adjudication. The project seeks to generate new knowledge of the stress judicial officers experience and the individual and institutional mechanisms for managing stressors, combining socio-legal and psychological approaches. Expected outcomes include evidence-based understandings to inform recruitment and retention strategies specific to this highly specialized workforce. This should provide significant benefits for judges’ work capacities and courts' delivery of justice.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1801 - Law. Lead: Prof Prudence Vines

(Re)Designing Digital Justice. This project aims to address the challenge of (re)designing novel online court systems by introducing a human-centred design process to the legal process. This project will generate fundamental new knowledge in respect of how to effectively design an inclusive justice system, bridging the gap between the legal system and human-computer interaction. Expected outcomes include how to use technology to implement a more just, efficient, and fair legal system, which is accessible to all Australians. This should provide significant benefits for both Australian society and the legal system.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4608 - Human-Centred Computing. Lead: Prof Patrick Olivier

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

Improving the accuracy of the justice system with systematic reviews. This project aims to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the legal system by making the scientific knowledge it relies on more accessible, understandable, and current. To do so, we will create fully transparent systematic reviews of commonly used forensic practices and topics, such as fingerprint analysis, and consult with lawyers, judges, and the public to build evidence-based strategies for effectively communicating these reviews. Long-term impact is ensured through training forensic scientists to produce future systematic reviews and by building a library of reviews hosted by the Australian Academy of Science. These tools will help prevent wrongful convictions, bring knowledge into courts more efficiently, and foster public trust. . Scheme: Linkage Projects. Field: 4804 - Law In Context. Lead: Dr Jason Chin

Building a Black Justice Journalism. This project argues for a new form of scholarly journalism, grounded in conceptions of Black Justice, as a critical intervention needed to address the ongoing media misreporting of Indigenous affairs. Through an innovative methodological approach combining scholarship, journalistic practice and archival research, the research agenda will seek to understand the role of the media in sustaining and entrenching settler colonialism. It will interrogate the field of journalism ethics, arguing that accepted norms of journalistic practice compound harm and restrict the voices of Black Witnesses. In doing so, it will aim to build an ethics of practice in the form of Black Justice Journalism which will be disseminated to the Indigenous media sector.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Dr Amy McQuire

Designing peacemaking programs with First Nations languages and communities. This project aims to examine mediation, negotiation and peacemaking processes in First Nations communities, and the language practices that underpin them. Working under First Nations governance, the project expects to generate new knowledge about how these practices are being sustained, and how are they being adapted to contemporary community- and school-based contexts. The expected outcome is an improved understanding of peacemaking practices in First Nations communities and how they are supported by linguistic practices. The project will provide significant benefits by advancing the design and facilitation of culturally responsive peacemaking processes and improving cross-cultural mediation and negotiation programs.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Dr James Bednall

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

China’s Law-Based Governance Revolution under Xi Jinping . To sustain its unmitigated power, the Chinese Communist Party is transforming its legal ideology and governance focus to make politico-legal institutions more capable of supervising and moulding people’s behaviour and beliefs. This project aims to examine how this transformation is constructed by key institutions and digested into public policy and legal decision-making guidelines. It expects to generate new knowledge on how Xi Jinping-era legal ideology guides policy and decision-making in China. The expected outcomes include an enhanced conceptual and empirical understanding of politico-legal change in China. This project has significant implications for Australia given China’s increasingly assertive role in international governance. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 1699 - Other Studies In Human Society. Lead: Prof Sue Trevaskes

Medium temperature electrolysis for low-cost carbon dioxide utilization. Carbon dioxide is a notorious greenhouse gas. Its capture, and subsequent storage or utilization, is a major focus not only for researchers, but also for governments trying to meet their obligations of the Paris Agreement on climate change and for industries managing their legal and social responsibilities. This project aims to develop commercially viable medium temperature electrolysers to convert carbon dioxide into value added chemicals using electricity from renewable sources. New design principles will be developed to generate highly active and selective catalysts with long-term stability. These electrolyzers will be integrated with carbon capture technologies to directly utilize captured carbon dioxide with high energy efficiency.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 0306 - Physical Chemistry (Incl. Structural). Lead: A/Prof Jie Zhang

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

Indigenous mathematical transforms. A class of mathematical transforms, or systematic conversions between related spaces or objects, was practised by some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups. Such transforms from ground to night sky were used in long-distance route-recording and wayfinding techniques. This project aims to elucidate these transforms, and to use this knowledge to extend the mathematical framework and applications of Fourier analysis. There is significant potential for new mathematics to emerge at this exciting interface of Indigenous/non-Indigenous knowledge. Expected outcomes are interdisciplinary research training for Indigenous students and new understanding of Indigenous sciences. Emerging big data technologies such as holography may benefit. . Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4901 - Applied Mathematics. Lead: Prof Rowena Ball

Fine Tuning: A Reconciliation of Indigenous and Western Musical Traditions. Focusing on central Australian song lines, the project strengthens our knowledge, understanding and application of the intricate tuning systems that underpin traditional Indigenous musical practices. Employing a unique methodology that combines Indigenous and contemporary Western musical performance practices with cutting-edge digital technologies, the project will show how the highly nuanced and sophisticated tunings at the heart of Indigenous music-making can be preserved when transposed to contemporary Western art music contexts. In so doing, the case is made for a more genuine, equitable dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous music-makers, to the mutual benefit of musicians, audiences, and society at large. . Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History. Lead: Dr Dylan Crismani

Beautiful strings. This project aims to carry out several key experimental measurements, in tandem with substantial theoretical work, to improve the understanding and physical modelling of processes involving b quarks, also called beauty quarks, which are of intense current interest for experiments across the globe. Key theoretical innovations include novel treatments of electromagnetic corrections, novel theoretical formulations of the dominant physical paradigm of string fragmentation, and optimisations of key associated algorithms to enable new applications of broad relevance. Experimental measurements will be carried out to validate the new theoretical developments and use them to minimise theoretical uncertainties.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 5107 - Particle and High Energy Physics. Lead: Prof Peter Skands

Unpacking the policy process: alcohol policy in complex social environments. In pursuit of effective alcohol policies, experts have focused on promoting evidence-based solutions, assuming that policymakers will select policies on the basis of research evidence. However, this linear model of evidence-based policy rarely plays out when related to highly contested social issues such as alcohol use. We need new ways of thinking about influencing alcohol policy that account for and engage with the realities of policymaking in socially complex regions, particularly policy relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This DECRA will address this critical gap in knowledge by generating knowledge on alcohol policy processes, with a view to informing more effective engagement in the alcohol policymaking process.. Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Field: 4407 - Policy and Administration. Lead: Dr Cassandra Wright

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

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

Where we belong: Connecting Indigenous identity and well-being in the city. This project aims to address a critical knowledge gap about the lived experience of well-being for urban/sub-urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. This project intends to provide an empirical understanding of the importance of identity and belonging for well-being from an Indigenous standpoint. Expected outcomes of this project include an in-depth, holistic, and place-based understanding of Indigenous-determined pathways to living well in the city and identifying community-based policy opportunities. This project has the potential to contribute to significant social and cultural benefits, such as improving Indigenous community well-being, healing intergenerational trauma, and promoting social cohesion and reconciliation.. Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4504 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Wellbeing. Lead: Dr Sarah Bourke

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

Using Conservation Covenants for Ecosystem Restoration & Climate Adaptation. This project aims to investigate the role of conservation covenants in facilitating ecological restoration and adaptation to climate change. In light of international experience, the project examines Australia's legal experience with conservation covenants, with case studies in NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria. The project expects to generate new theoretical insights and practical knowledge about the obstacles and opportunities for enabling covenants to play a more ambitious role in meeting biodiversity conservation and recovery goals. This should generate significant benefits to Australia in meeting its international environmental obligations, and improving collaboration between governments and community and landholder stakeholders.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4802 - Environmental and Resources Law. Lead: Prof Benjamin Richardson

Dealing with Climate Disaster. In Australia climate disasters could lead to over 500,000 homes becoming uninsurable by 2030, many in already disadvantaged areas. This raises significant social justice issues for Australia and worldwide. In this project we will evaluate how climate related disasters are likely to impact the well-being of the already disadvantaged and what to do about it. We will develop a new model of insurance provision and related disaster response that draws on robust ethical and actuarial research. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 5001 - Applied Ethics. Lead: Prof Jeremy Moss

Malnuda Burra Yina: Gabra Stories of Yorta Yorta Fruit Picking. This project will investigate the role played by Yorta Yorta people in the Goulburn Valley fruit picking industry. Utilising family/clan led research, it is intended to advance our understanding of the history of Australian capitalism by applying Aboriginal modalities. The project will show how Yorta Yorta families practiced self-determination through their choice of labour and employer from the 1920s to the 1970s. Its outcomes are multifaceted, prioritising community aspirations to document their contribution to the economy. The project should provide significant social, cultural and commercial benefits by generating greater knowledge of Yorta Yorta fruit picking in the Goulburn Valley region and beyond. . Scheme: Discovery Indigenous. Field: 4519 - Other Indigenous Data, Methodologies and Global Indigenous Studies. Lead: Prof Julie Andrews

Aboriginal Health Equity: culturally safe care and child development . The Aboriginal Health Equity Futures study will be the first longitudinal cohort study to examine and quantify culturally safe care impacts on Aboriginal children's developmental trajectories. Integrated prospectively collected and linked administrative data will establish if children (0-5 years) benefit from maternal exposure to culturally safe perinatal care practices. Building on prior studies, the quantitative design within an Indigenous research framework will provide a novel platform for a comprehensive analysis of wellbeing inequalities in the early life course. The study is critical to sustain culturally responsive maternity care and for health policies and practice which support Closing the Gap targets for future generations.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4504 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Wellbeing. Lead: Prof Rhonda Marriott

Living memorials, art in dialogue. There is a lack of memorials acknowledging and addressing the violences of the past toward Indigenous people in Australia. Speech in the form of testimony is one powerful mechanism for acknowledging past wrongs and creating a shared memory of trauma and injustice. Art is another. Art in facilitating a dialogue between artist and audience, and between artists and the world, traverses language, borders and histories. This project investigates art as a witness to past violence and trauma, and produces a living memorial through dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists and audiences. It seeks to provide pathways toward national healing through an innovative model of bearing witness to Australia’s history through art and dialogue. . Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 4702 - Cultural Studies. Lead: Dr Lisa Radford

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