Seed funding annoucement

The Institute for Sustainable Solutions is very pleased to announce the award of $500,000 in 'seed funding' for interdisciplinary research into Sustainable Solutions. Expressions of Interest to conduct this research were called for in December 2008. The Institute received 40 EOIs and the Chief Investigators of these EOIs were invited to attend a workshop which was held on 29 January in an attempt to find further interdisciplinary synergies between the EOIs.

Following on from the EOI workshop, the Research Office received 17 applications for funding, requesting $1.6 million in total. The Research Office established a selection committee which was chaired by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research), Professor Jill Trewhella. Seven of the applications were successful and a total of $500,000 in 'seed funding' has been awarded.

The successful application are:

• Ecological resilience of people and place: The key to sustaining Australia's iconic landscapes.  $81,195
  Ross Coleman (Biology), Stephen Simpson (Biology), Chris Dickman, (Biology), Dieter Hochuli (Biology), Clare McArthur (Biology), Glenda Wardle (Biology), Mark Browne (Biology), Adam Munn (Veterinary Science), Nicole Gurran (Design & Planning), Stephanie Donald (Media), Ross Gibson (Sydney College of the Arts), Michael Harris (Agriculture), Stefan Williams (Australian Centre for Field Robotics), Richard Murphy (Australian Centre for Field Robotics), Andrew Holmes (Microbial and Molecular Biosciences), Dan Rubenstein (Princeton Biology)

• Recovery of Australian ecosystems following fire in areas affected by plant pathogens.  $27,707
  Rosalie Daniel (Agriculture), Peter McGee (Biology), David Guest (Agriculture)

• Sustainable water for Australian cities.  $104,590
  Andrew Harris (Chemical and Biological Engineering), Chiara Neto (Chemistry)

• Combining traditional and contemporary land management in remote Australian landscapes - fire pests and productivity.  $14,200
  Andrew Merchant (Agriculture), Sebastian Pfautsch (Agriculture)

• Linking eco-payment schemes with community livelihoods:  the need for institutional innovation to address deforestation in Southeast Asia.  $96,639
  Jeff Neilson (Geoscience), Rosemary Lyster (Law), Paulo Santos (Agriculture), Holly High (Anthropology), Simon Butt (Law), Elisabeth Peden (Law), William Pritchard (Geoscience), Tim Stephens (Law), Philip Hirsch (Geoscience)

• Empedocles:  a prototype spatial data infrastructure for monitoring of agro-ecosystems for sustainable landscapes.  $73,140
  Inakwu Odeh (Agriculture), Hugh Durrant-Whyte (Australian Centre for Field Robotics), Alex McBratney (Agriculture)

• Developing a framework for assessing pollinator abundance.  $102,529
  Ben Oldroyd (Biology), Madeleine Beekman (Biology), Nathan Lo (Biology), Rute Brito (Biology), John Crawford (Agriculture).

The interim Co-Directors, Rosemary Lyster and Thomas Maschmeyer, and the Theme Leaders, Ruth Colagiuri, John Crawford, Geoff Frost and Tony Vassallo congratulate all of the successful applicants and wish them well with their research activities.