Research to develop portable, wearable devices to monitor health conditions; use open data to create new tools for public policy decisions, and allow a major detector upgrade for an important astronomical observatory are just some of the varied and exciting new research directions now possible with the funding from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (ARC).
ARC Chief Executive Officer, Professor Sue Thomas, said that Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham, today announced $28.6 million in funding for 50 new collaborative research infrastructure projects to be undertaken as part of the ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) scheme under the National Competitive Grants Program.
“The Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities scheme provides critical funding for research infrastructure, equipment and facilities—the tools to allow eligible organisations to support their research,” said Professor Thomas.
“The scheme fosters important research collaboration through its support of the cooperative use of these national and international research facilities—in this way, it is providing funding for large-scale initiatives for expensive infrastructure, equipment and facilities to be shared or accessed by researchers in partnered organisations.
“Of the projects funded, 27 will involve collaboration between Australian and overseas researchers to establish and use the facilities and equipment.
“Importantly, it allows focused support for existing and emerging areas of research strength across areas of national science and research priority—including advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, energy, environmental change, food, health, resources, soil and water, and transport.”
Some of the research projects set to receive funding in this LIEF funding round to commence in 2018 include:
- Professor Dayong Jin at The University of Technology Sydney will lead a project worth $435,279 to create a fabrication facility for production of novel portable, wearable and stretchable biomedical devices to monitor health conditions in a non-invasive way.
- Professor Jane Farmer at Swinburne University of Technology will lead a project worth $1.3 million to link open data, knowledge and collaborations on existing research infrastructure projects to develop ‘next generation’ tools to support decisions on important public policy issues.
- Professor Bruce Dawson at The University of Adelaide will lead a project worth $159,450 that will contribute to a major detector upgrade of the 3000 square kilometre Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, used in international scientific collaboration involving Australian researchers, to enhance the sensitivity of the observatory for high-energy cosmic rays.
This LIEF scheme announcement is part of today’s ARC schemes grant announcements totalling $333.5 million for 859 research projects.