Sydney's researchers top latest funding round

From left, PhD student Dave Wood, Dr Mari Velonaki with her daughter Clio, and Dr David Rye - all from ACFR - with Senator Kim Carr at the announcement of the ARC grants in Canberra. The wheelchairs in the foreground are actually autonomous robots that can interact physically and print intimate notes, known as Bird (blue) and Fish (red), which Dr Velonaki built as part of her previous ARC Linkage Project.

The University of Sydney leads the nation in new funding for 2009 from the Australian Research Council National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP). Over $363 million of research grants for 1103 projects were announced on Wednesday by the Minister for Innovation, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr.

For the largest scheme within the NGCP, Discovery Projects (DP), Sydney received $45.8 million - almost sixteen percent of total national funding - for 124 projects (see previous story). Sydney's lead was followed by The University of Melbourne at nearly thirteen percent of national funding and The University of Queensland at almost twelve and a half percent.

University of Sydney researchers were also awarded more fellowships than any other university, including nine of the highly prestigious Australian Professorial Fellowships (APF), four QEII and Australian Research Fellowships for mid-career researchers and seventeen Australian Post-Doctoral Fellowships for early-career researchers.

Professor Chris Dickman from the School of Biological Sciences secured an APF and over $1 million for a five-year study about the role of predators in the ecology of Australian deserts. His project will garner greater understanding of interactions within such landscapes and allow for the formulation of better measures for their preservation. His success was one of forty-six grants and ten fellowships secured by the Faculty of Science.

Good news for Medicine, Engineering and Arts

Professor Peter Read was awarded an APF for his work on indigenous history and also featured at the expo. The School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI), where Professor Read is based, was exceptionally successful in this round of funding. SOPHI was awarded a total of nineteen new grants out of the Faculty of Arts' twenty-two and this included nine Fellowships out of the Faculty's eleven.

The Faculty of Medicine received one fellowship and thirteen new grants, while the Engineering and Information Technologies faculty gained twenty grants and three fellowships, worth $6.9 million.

Dr Mari Velonaki, an Australian Research Fellow recipient from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, will undertake a five-year study in interactive robotics, bringing together her experience as an artist and researcher in interactive media and robotics. She aims to create a soft and flexible robotic form, which will be able to interact with people, hopefully with applications in aged health care. Dr Velonaki's cross-disciplinary work was featured in a research expo held at Parliament House together with the announcement.

Eight million for Linkage projects

The quality of University of Sydney research was also evidenced by the University's success in Linkage Projects, the second-largest NCGP scheme, which funds collaborative projects between researchers and partner organisations. Sydney secured $8.1 million for nineteen projects - equating to a success rate of over 65 percent of applications. It also includes funding for seventeen postgraduate scholarships known as Australian Postgraduate Award (Industry).

Director of the Health Informatics Research and Evaluation Unit at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Professor Johanna Westbrook, and a team of three other researchers are collaborating with Sydney South West Area Health Service in a multi-site study utilising information and communication technologies to increase capacity and reduce errors. Project funds of over $1.5 million include two APAI, giving research students the opportunity to undertake industry-based research, producing researchers with both real-world experience and a stringent academic grounding.

The Australian Research Council also funds post-doctoral fellowships within Linkage projects that allow researchers within three years of the completion of the doctorate to work on projects full-time. Sydney University researchers have garnered funding for three such researchers, two of whom will work with earth scientist Associate Professor Dietmar Muller.

In a project that will quantify the relationship between motion in the earth's mantle caused by the variation of temperature and density and basin evolution, a team of five scientists will work with Shell International Exploration & Production, Inc. to apply emerging technologies for resource exploration. Professor Muller was also successful his DP applications "Planet-scale reorganisations of the plate-mantle system", and "The Subduction Reference Framework: unravelling the causes of long-term sea-level change."

Sydney's depth and breadth confirmed

Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Don Nutbeam, said the really encouraging thing about Sydney's success was the spread of funding across a very wide range of disciplines.

"This outstanding performance is a true reflection of the breadth of talent we have in all areas of our research", he said. "Sydney is a truly comprehensive university where innovative research is being undertaken and recognised for its relevance, in all major disciplines."

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