Investigating how and why megafauna extinction occurred in Australia, how fats and sugar affect learning and memory, and ways for more secure outsourced cloud data storage will be the focus of some of the outstanding research projects funded by the Australian Government today.
Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Council (ARC), Professor Sue Thomas, has welcomed the announcement today by Minister for Education and Training, Senator the Hon. Simon Birmingham, of $225.6 million for 594 projects funded through the ARC Discovery Projects scheme.
“The Discovery Projects scheme provides funding to support excellent basic and applied research projects to be undertaken by individual researchers or research teams,” Professor Thomas said.
Some of the Discovery Projects to commence in 2018 include:
- $443,270 for a project led by Professor Kylie Catchpole at The Australian National University to improve solar cell stability under operating conditions for future large-scale production of cheap, clean electricity.
- $350,231 for a project led by Dr Mihye Won at Curtin University to develop a comprehensive analytical framework to identify and nurture scientific creativity in high school students so they can successfully address complex future challenges.
- $312,298 for a project led by Professor Willy Susilo at the University of Wollongong to improve control of encrypted outsourced data—critical to cloud computing—for more practical, secure data storage.
- $428,724 for a project led by Dr Amy Reichelt at RMIT University to investigate the mechanisms for how fats and sugar affect neuronal processes for learning and memory.
- $416,584 for a project led by Associate Professor Trevor Worthy at The Flinders University of South Australia to determine the nature, timing and cause of megafaunal extinction in arid Australia to inform conservation management strategies.
This Discovery Projects scheme announcement is part of today’s ARC schemes grant announcements totaling $333.5 million for 859 research projects.