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Improvements to Grant Search II

18 December 2019

Following the launch of Grant Search II earlier in the year, we have listened to your feedback and made some improvements to the Data Portal to make it easier to search.

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Have your say on the future of research classification

12 December 2019

The ARC, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Stats NZ have published a consultation draft of proposed revisions to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC).

The purpose of the ANZSRC review is to ensure that research classifications reflect current practice and remain responsive to change in the sector. Input from researchers and research experts will be vital to ensuring that the final classification fulfils these goals.

Music activates brains! Credit: University of Melbourne

Healing the mind through songwriting

10 December 2019

Professor Felicity Baker is a music therapy researcher and head of music therapy at The University of Melbourne, who is leading a research team to investigate how musical creativity—including the creation, performance and recording of songs—can be a powerful tool in therapy.

Professor Baker’s work has used the transformative power of songwriting to assist people to self-explore, process, and resolve personal issues and express individual and collective identities. The participants of music therapy that she has worked with include people with mental illness, those in palliative care, and those who have suffered brain or spinal cord injuries.

credit Joshu Fartch

Every moment has potential: actively supporting people with intellectual disability

10 December 2019

Professor Christine Bigby is the Director of the Living with Disability Research Centre at La Trobe University, whose research is meaningfully advancing the quality of life of people with cognitive disabilities.

Continuously supported by a number of ARC grants since 2004, Professor Bigby’s research focus in recent years has been on the culture and theory behind the operation of group homes—which, in Australia, is the dominant form of accommodation for people with severe intellectual disabilities.

A high performance luminescent concentrator developed by ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science researchers. Credit: ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science.

Luminescent solar concentrators to complement traditional solar harvesting technology

9 December 2019

A team of researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science is creating materials that could transform windows and walls into solar cells, raising the possibility of self-powered buildings.
Dr Wallace Wong and Professor Ken Ghiggino at The University of Melbourne and Professor Tim Schmidt at the University of New South Wales, are working to make better luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs). These light-harvesting devices are designed to capture energy from light in cities and other places without bright direct sunlight.

The Southern Ocean is more turbulent than thought. Credit: Ed Dunens (CC BY 2.0)

The role of convection in the Southern Ocean

9 December 2019

ARC-supported researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX) have used a supercomputer to accurately simulate convection in the waters of the Southern Ocean, with implications for climate models that may have underestimated the degree to which seawaters are mixed by convection in turbulent ocean regions of the Earth.

Griffith University’s apparatus for accurately measuring the polarisation of photons. Random bits in, photons in, quantum experiment data out!

The Big Bell Test collaboration

9 December 2019

Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) based at Griffith University have played an important role in a major international collaboration that tested quantum nonlocality—Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’—in a suite of experiments worldwide.

ARC staff at trade booth at AIATSIS conference 2019

AIATSIS National Indigenous Research Conference July 2019

25 October 2019

The ARC was proud to sponsor and participate in the 2019 Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) National Indigenous Research Conference, which was held at Queensland University of Technology from 1 to 3 July 2019. 

Ms Sarah Howard, Branch Manager, and Ms Millennia Pullen, Assistant Director, from the ARC’s Research Evaluation Branch, spoke to conference delegates about the 2018 Engagement and Impact assessment introduced as part of the Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda. 

For the first time in a national assessment of university research, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research was treated as its own discipline. Universities provided impact studies outlining the type of research undertaken, described the benefits for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and the ways in which universities supported Indigenous-led research and outcomes outside academia. These impact studies were assessed by an expert panel of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders in research, business and community. 

Research office finance

Research Office finance workshop

25 October 2019

The ARC held a finance workshop in Canberra on 7 August 2019 for Research Office staff to learn more about the ARC post-award functions and processes.

It is the second year that the ARC Post-award team have led this type of workshop—this year especially for the finance staff in research offices.

Over 50 participants attended, representing 31 universities. All ARC Post-award staff participated, including relevant ARC senior executive staff.

Professor Sue Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of the ARC, welcomed all attendees and spoke about the importance of Research Office staff, as stakeholders of the ARC. This event is part of the ARC's ongoing commitment to continue building effective working relationships with Research Office staff around Australia.

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Streamlining NCGP grants administration update

25 October 2019

Since the last update, we have been working to update the application form, grant guidelines and associated documents to prepare for the opening of grant schemes.  We have received valuable and insightful feedback over the last year and this has helped to finalise the changes we will progressively make to all of these items.

The objectives and assessment criteria in the grant guidelines have been reviewed and updated to ensure they reflect the expectations of government, are standard across schemes where relevant, and that there is clear line of sight between the intended program and scheme outcomes and the information required for assessment in the application form.

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