$19 million research win for University of Adelaide

New ARC funded research will help make better sense of our universe
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Monday, 5 November 2012

University of Adelaide researchers have been awarded $19 million in Federal funding for new research that will lead to discoveries for the benefit of our environment, technology and health, and make better sense of our universe.

A total of 49 new research grants has been awarded to the University of Adelaide as part of the Australian Research Council's (ARC) major grants announcement for projects starting in 2013.

University of Adelaide topped the country for the number of projects and amount funded in the Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities category of grants (9 projects, $3.76 million), and was awarded 31 out of 41 Discovery Projects for South Australia (a total of $12.36 million) and 9 out of 10 Discovery Early Career Research Awards for the state ($3.28 million).

"This is another excellent result for University of Adelaide research," says the University's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Mike Brooks. "The continuing high level of success our researchers are achieving in these highly competitive ARC grants reflects the quality and importance of the work they are doing.

"We are particularly pleased to have been awarded the highest LIEF funding in the country - a testament to our successful collaborations with other research organisations and external bodies."

A total of 31 new Discovery Projects for the country's highest quality research include:

• $375,000 to Dr Gary Hill (School of Chemistry and Physics) - Unlocking the universe's high energy secrets with large scale neutrino detectors at the South Pole

• $408,000 to Dr Jeremy Austin (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences) - Reconstructing the impact of climate change on Australian native species

• $450,000 to Professor Mark Biggs (School of Chemical Engineering) - Self-assembling nanoporous graphene with dialable pore sizes for green energy production

• $630,000 to Professor Mathai Varghese (School of Mathematical Sciences) - Advances in Index Theory

• $585,000 to Professor Garrett Cullity (School of Humanities) - Reason and value in normative ethics

• $443,000 to Professor Mike Wilkinson (School of Agriculture, Food and Wine) - Reconstructing wheat evolution using ancient DNA

• $800,000 to Associate Professor David O'Carroll (School of Medical Sciences) for two separate projects - (1)Strategies for neural summation in space and time for night vision and (2)Neural mechanisms for visual target detection and attention in complex scenes

A further nine projects were successful under the Discovery Early Career Research Awards.

The Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities projects, collaborations with other research organisations to develop and support research infrastructure, include:

• $1.25 million to a team lead by Professor John Carver (School of Chemistry and Physics) with a project Adelaide Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). This will significantly enhance and broaden NMR capabilities in South Australia and advance world-class research in chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology and biochemistry.

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