Image: Students in the class room. Photo credit: Professor Lyn English.

Enhancing the Australian curriculum through STEM

23 December 2014

Improving the nation’s skills in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is the focus of a new ARC Discovery Project funded in the most recent ARC major grants funding round (for 2015).

Professor Lyn English, from the Queensland University of Technology, is the lead Chief Investigator on the new $603 900 project. Professor English will collaborate with colleagues at the University of Tasmania to introduce a new approach to promoting learning across grades 3–6 through modelling with data.

Image: Dr Linda Ford. Photo credit: Mark Ford 2013.

Extending the power of indigenous ceremony

23 December 2014

Indigenous ceremonial performance is a key process for integrating indigenous knowledge from many different domains, and it is a socially powerful means of exchange, transmission and transformation of relationship to country and kin.

A new research project, funded through an ARC Discovery Indigenous grant, aims to examine and compare old ceremonies with contemporary ceremonial practices.

Image: Hexapod Robot for Biomechanics developed by researchers at Flinders University and The University of Adelaide. (L-R) Ben Cazzolato (UofA), Boyin Ding (UofA), John Costi (Flinders) and Richard Stanley (Flinders). Photo credit: Brooke Whatnall.

LIEF grant to establish world-class 3D dynamic testing facility

23 December 2014

The creation of a unique and world-class facility that will allow researchers to study vibrations and their impact, is one step closer following the award of a $400 000 ARC grant.

Associate Professor Benjamin Cazzolato, from The University of Adelaide, is the lead Chief Investigator on a new Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities scheme grant, funded in the 2015 ARC major grants round.

Image: Dr Margaret Shanafield. Photo credit: Dr Margaret Shanafield, The Flinders University of South Australia.

New tools to predict groundwater availability

23 December 2014

Australia is the world’s driest continent and reliance on groundwater for survival and livelihood is critical now and in the future, however our current understanding of how groundwater is replenished is limited.

Dr Margaret Shanafield, a researcher at The Flinders University of South Australia and the National Centre for Groundwater Research Training (NCGRT), recently received an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) to generate a clearer understanding of groundwater recharge.

Image: Professor Veena Sahajwalla Photo credit: Professor Veena Sahajwalla.

Science 50:50

23 December 2014

Professor Veena Sahajwalla is a passionate and dedicated researcher in what can often be classified as a male domain—that of science and technology.

In August this year Professor Sahajwalla was awarded an ARC Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship. This Fellowship will allow Professor Sahajwalla to undertake a dedicated research programme looking at how to transform toxic electronic waste into value-added metal and alloys.

Image: At the 2015 ARC Major Grants Announcement

ARC 2015 major grants announced

23 December 2014

The ARC’s major grants ceremony was held on 5 November at a ceremony at Flinders at Victoria Square in Adelaide.

The Minister for Education, the Hon. Christopher Pyne MP, announced the successful grant recipients for funding commencing in 2015.

ERA 2015 Excellence in Research for Australia

Preparations intensify for ERA 2015

23 December 2014

With the New Year fast approaching the work underway for Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2015 is intensifying.

The ERA team at the ARC has spent a large part of the last few months visiting nearly every university to assist with their preparations for the 2015 round. This has been an important exercise as it has allowed ERA team members to speak directly with those charged with managing the ERA process within Australian institutions, in turn providing a great deal of valuable feedback in both directions.

Image: Dr Matthew Hill. Photo Courtesy: WildBear/Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science.

The remarkable properties of ultraporous crystal sponges

23 December 2014

Natural gas is a cleaner and cheaper fuel than oil, and Australia has an expanding industry in utilising its significant gas reserves. This burgeoning industry promises to be the first to benefit from a research breakthrough in the design of ultraporous crystals that will lead to much more energy efficient gas storage and processing.

Natural gas ‘sweetening’ is one of the cleaning processes that removes unwanted gasses like hydrogen sulphide or carbon dioxide from the raw product—but this process consumes a large part of the energy used in processing the gas.

Image: The Black Sea. Image credit: Professor Kliti Grice.

Ancient molecules entombed in rock

23 October 2014

In a story reminiscent of a tomb raider’s discovery of ancient mummified remains in the Egyptian desert, new research supported by the ARC has unveiled the preservation of intact biological molecules and their fossilised counterparts, which date back to an ancient mass extinction event brought on by the warming of the Earth’s oceans.

Researchers have unearthed these intact biomarkers from a 380-million-year-old fossil, as part of a new molecular and stable isotopic based approach which can reconstruct the Earth’s ancient environments in unprecedented detail.

Image: (Left to Right) Shurlee Swain (Australian Catholic University), Helen Morgan (The University of Melbourne), Judith Smart (RMIT/The University of Melbourne). Photograph courtesy of the National Library of Australia.

The Encyclopedia of Women Leadership in Twentieth Century Australia

23 October 2014

A new online encyclopedia celebrating the inspiring success stories from women in every walk of life is now available to the general public following a research project that brought together academics from a range of universities, museums and libraries.

The Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia was launched in May at the National Library of Australia. The project that led to the delivery of this new resource was supported with funding from the ARC Linkage Projects scheme.

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