The Australian Research Council (ARC) continues to support collaboration between researchers with industry, governments, and community organisations through the latest round of ARC Linkage Projects grants.
Today, Minister for Education and Youth Alan Tudge announced $29.5 million in funding for 65 new research projects that range in focus from restoring native vegetation in isolated areas to creating new hydrogen storage systems.
ARC Chief Executive Officer, Professor Sue Thomas, welcomed the announcement of the successful outcomes under this round of the Linkage Projects scheme that aims to promote national and international research partnerships to find real-world solutions to a wide array of issues.
"ARC's Linkage Projects grant opportunity supports projects that initiate or develop long term research alliances that will apply advanced knowledge to problems as a basis for securing commercial and other benefits of research," Professor Thomas said.
"The new research projects announced today cover a broad spectrum of topics in Australian Government priority areas. They all aim to solve challenges that will benefit Australians and potentially have applications that help the world."
Some examples of the successful projects include:
- Macquarie University researchers will collaborate with AirSeed Technologies and the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust to restore native vegetation in degraded land - including bushfire affected areas - by using cutting-edge drone technology for precision-based seeding. ($543,650)
- Researchers at The University of Queensland will collaborate with Sonova Australia to examine the social connections of adults with hearing loss which will help guide policy for better health care models and services to improve the management of age-related hearing loss. ($355,000)
- Researchers at The University of Western Australia will collaborate with the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions (WA) to improve the practice of seed banking by developing new technology that can evaluate seed quality to ensure the viability of specimens, benefitting seed banks globally. ($582,084)
- Researchers from The University of Adelaide will collaborate with Cryoclock to transform Australia's sapphire precision clock technology - used in navigation, radar and various communications - from a bulky and expensive clock to a smaller, more affordable and efficient clock which will increase its performance and useability in other applications. ($300,000)
A full list of the grants and details of all research projects are available on the ARC website.
