Griffith University

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Well-designed Metal Oxide Semiconductors for Photocatalytic Water Splitting. The project seeks to provide new insights into the effects that structure and composition of catalyst materials have on photocatalytic properties, to tackle the bottlenecks inhibiting the commercialisation of water-splitting technology. The main objective of this project is to strategically design and synthesise highly efficient photo-harvesting mesostructural materials (multi-shelled hollow microspheres) and use them for efficient photocatalytic water splitting. Based on an understanding of photoharvesting materials and the current challenges that plague water-splitting reactions, the project plans to use state-of-the-art materials synthesis and theoretical calculations to develop next-generation photo-harvesting materials for water-splitting systems. Field of research: 0912 - Materials Engineering

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Small States in International Organisations. By analysing whether small states can have an impact on the operations of international organisations (IOs), the project aims to identify the benefits, problems and prospects of modern multilateralism where more and more states actively participate. IOs are under pressure because more of their members have become active participants in their daily operations, trying to ensure the IOs are 'member-driven'. Some of the smallest states have had an impact. This project asks how, while operating with yesterday’s formal structures and rules, IOs have adapted to accommodate the participation of so many diverse states. Covering six IOs over the last 25 years, the project plans to identify the dynamic relationship between IO leaders and staff, and both their small and large member states. Project outcomes may inform the ways in which Australia could help to build the capacities of its smaller neighbours so that they can take advantage of their IO membership. Field of research: 1606 - Political Science

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Escaping Bio-Assay Guided Isolation: Nature's Tools for Chemical Biology. The project aims to transform the approach to identify novel biologically active compounds that occur in nature. For decades, natural product chemistry has centred on bio-assay guided isolation, but it has become increasingly difficult to isolate novel compounds. While de-replication strategies detect the presence of known compounds using databases, more impact would be achieved by directly detecting novel compounds. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy detects every molecule that has a proton and is quantitative. This project plans to develop a NMR technique to escape bio-assay guided isolation by analysing a fraction library. Biotechnology innovation is dependent on novel compounds to provide new products. Replacing ‘grind and find’ with a technique that never lies would be transformational. Field of research: 0304 - Medicinal and Biomolecular Chemistry

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Cabinet Government in comparative perspective. This project explores how cabinet government is, or is not, able to develop a collective will. Cabinets lie at the heart of parliamentary systems, but public and academic analyses question whether they work effectively. Using examples of majoritarian and consensus democratic regimes, this project plans to examine how cabinets work and identify the different functions cabinet plays in developing collective views of policy or political situations. The project expects to illustrates how the different appreciations of cabinet, whether seen as constitutional or operational, or in terms of policy analysis or political contests, help define the values of cabinet and can allow us to understand in what circumstances cabinet government is important in terms of stability and sensible policy. It asks if collective cabinets like Australia's can survive in the 21st century. Field of research: 1606 - Political Science

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Employment dynamics, social determinants and regional disparities. This project explains the nature of individual employment dynamics during and after the global financial crisis in the context of the social and economic characteristics of individuals and the characteristics of the local labour markets in which they operate. Understanding how the dynamic paths through various employment states vary according to both individual (people-based) and place-based influences has important implications for the development of sustainable labour market policies and reducing the impact of disadvantaged employment outcomes. These issues are investigated using new functional economic regions and state of art modelling. The project seeks to improve policy responses to and academic understanding of uneven employment outcomes across Australia. Field of research: 1604 - Human Geography

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

The effect of catchment revegetation on waterways. The effect of catchment revegetation on waterways. This project will examine the forms, transformations and fate of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in aquatic ecosystems and the link to human health with water treatment. Catchment revegetation is a management tool used to reduce excessive nutrient loads to waterways, which in turn causes poor water quality. However, catchment revegetation also produces DOM. DOM is typically poorly characterised and its effect on ecosystem health unclear. DOM also reacts with chlorine in water treatment plants to form disinfection by-products that affect human health. This research is expected to provide important new information to guide future catchment restoration efforts. Field of research: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Contested multilateralism 2.0 and Asia Pacific security. This project aims to examine the foreign policy choices of five major powers – the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Australia – toward multilateral institutions in the Asia Pacific after the Cold War through an economic-security-nexus model. Through in-depth theoretical and empirical case studies, this project will explore when states are more likely to rely on rule-based institutions or to use power-based strategies, such as alliance formation, to pursue security in world politics. This project aims to provide policy insights for Australian policy makers to conduct a sensible and effective “Asia policy” in the 21st century. Field of research: 1606 - Political Science

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Managing environmental change through planning for transformative pathways. The project plans to bring together Chinese and Australian researchers to investigate how planning systems in the two countries can be enhanced to avoid tipping points due to urbanisation processes and environmental change. It aims to formulate transformative pathways for two case study areas, situated in peri-urban areas of a rapidly growing region in each country, which seek to link adaptation and sustainability to address and/or avoid land use planning failures. The anticipated outcome of the project is to address environmental and social change resulting from rapid urbanisation and environmental change. Field of research: 1205 - Urban and Regional Planning

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Mechanisms of acclimation of coralline algae to ocean acidification. This project aims to investigate the biological and ecological mechanisms by which reef-building coralline algae may have survived past ocean acidification and warming events and may acclimate to future changes. Coralline algae play critical roles in coral reef ecology but are sensitive to human-induced ocean acidification. However, the abundant geological record coincident with past acidification events is inconsistent with their sensitivity to high carbon dioxide. Acclimation and adaptation is therefore possible but in ways we do not yet understand. The project expects to provide insights to the ability of key marine organisms to acclimate to rapid environmental change and provide information critical for the conservation of valuable marine systems. Field of research: 0607 - Plant Biology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Fabrication of Novel Core-Shell Nanocomposites as Targeted Carriers. This project intends to design and fabricate a group of core-shell nanocomposites as new-generation carriers for effective drug delivery applications. The unique core-shell functional materials possess radiation/magnetic-responsive release behaviour due to the nanoparticle core, and good biocompatibility, ultra-high loading capacity and outstanding targeting specificity due to the surface-modified mesoporous metal-organic frameworks shell. Development of such hybrid materials would overcome the existing challenges such as low loading capacity, poor release control. The application of such materials may help to improve the efficacy of pharmaceutical therapies. Field of research: 0912 - Materials Engineering

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Quantum physics and complexity. How much information about a system’s present is needed to predict its future? This project aims to show that the answer fundamentally depends on how information is stored. Simulations of partially random processes are critical in real-world applications. Surprisingly, theory suggests that a simulation must store much more classical data (like bits) than is required to determine its output. This wastes precious resources. Via optical quantum information experiments, the project aims to demonstrate and characterise how storing and handling data in quantum states massively reduces this complexity overhead. Another goal is to use novel quantum optics ideas to greatly reduce communication complexity in important remote processing tasks. Field of research: 0206 - Quantum Physics

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Structure and function of human zinc transporter membrane proteins. The aim of this project is to create fundamental new knowledge on how important mammalian membrane proteins operate. Membrane proteins are key drug targets and are significantly under-represented in structural databases. The project plans to combine innovative membrane protein screening technology with gene expression, structural biology, biophysics and cell biology. The project outcomes may elucidate specific molecular mechanisms underpinning the essential biological process of zinc homeostasis. Field of research: 0601 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

History Places: Wellington Range rock art in a global context. The project aims to investigate one of Australia’s most extraordinary bodies of rock art, spread across Arnhem Land’s Wellington Range, in order to answer important archaeological research questions, provide Traditional Owners with a comprehensive digital record of their rock art heritage and develop a long term management plan. Field research will include survey, 2-D and 3-D rock art recording, limited excavation and sampling for dating. The project is designed to situate Wellington Range rock art in regional and global contexts in order to better understand long-term north Australian Aboriginal experience and its expression in relation to other hunter-gatherer groups and to gain new insight into human cultural and cognitive development. Field of research: 2101 - Archaeology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Developing tools for coupling marine mammal pollutant exposure to effects. This project aims to investigate the impact of marine pollution on marine mammals. Environmental pollution threatens the viability of marine ecosystems worldwide. Marine mammals are essential parts of these ecosystems but our understanding of contaminant exposure and associated effects in these animals is still insufficient to inform biodiversity conservation and management strategies. This project seeks to address this problem by developing computer-based models that determine how these species absorb, metabolise and eliminate pollutants, and what effects exposure has on the animals over time, thereby providing a new framework for evaluating current and future impacts of environmental changes. This risk assessment aims to benefit international conservation and species management efforts for these threatened species. Field of research: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Capturing full-spectrum of solar energy using TiO2 ordered suprastructures. The project aims to develop a titanium dioxide (TiO2) semiconductor that can use full-spectrum solar energy. Solar-driven photocatalytic processes have important applications in water decontamination and energy production. Their effectiveness is dictated by the semiconductor’s absorbance and conversion of photoenergy to chemical energy. Being inexpensive, chemically and mechanically robust, TiO2 is the most promising material for the semiconductor. However, unmodified TiO2 only absorbs ultraviolet light (5 per cent of solar energy). With current progress made in visible absorbance, this project aims to significantly improve TiO2’s absorbance in near infrared by doping with upconversion lanthanides and rendering colloidal crystal suprastructures that can trap light. Field of research: 1007 - Nanotechnology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Learning for Teaching in Disadvantaged Schools. This project focuses on what and how primary school teachers learn about improving classroom practices from co-inquiry interventions. The effective diagnosis of student learning difficulties and the design of educational interventions based on such diagnosis is a core component of quality teaching. Yet many teachers have not acquired the knowledge and skills to undertake such learning diagnostic and design work. The project plans to engage practitioners in co-inquiry through collaborative analysis of professional learning conversations and classroom practices across disadvantaged public schools in urban and regional locations across Queensland. It aims to examine the sustainability of co-inquiry models to improve student learning. Field of research: 1303 - Specialist Studies In Education

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Extinct hominins and early humans on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. This project aims to research the archaic hominins of Sulawesi and discover when and why they became extinct. Recent discoveries of ancient stone tools on Sulawesi show that an archaic and as-yet unidentified hominin species inhabited this remote Indonesian island before modern humans arrived around 50,000 years ago. This project will search for the earliest traces of habitation, attempt to uncover the Sulawesi hominins’ fossil record, and look for evidence of hominin-modern human interaction on this island. This project is expected to illuminate a previously unknown chapter in the human story. Field of research: 2101 - Archaeology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Carbohydrate language changes in vertebrate-pathogen co-evolution. This project aims to understand protein glycosylation’s role in host-pathogen relationships and cross-species transmission. Species specific sugars extensively modify cell surface and body fluid proteins. These glycans build a universal language that cells use and pathogens abuse. This project will use glycomics and glycoproteomics to uncover how pathogens learned to speak and interpret glyco-languages between different species. This project is expected to develop a glycan dictionary which could reveal host-pathogen co-evolution and glycosylation evolution in the Chordata phylum and counteract zoonoses threats. Field of research: 0304 - Medicinal and Biomolecular Chemistry

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Improving people management systems in emergency services. Improving people management systems in emergency services. This project aims to identify the organisational subsystems that affect the long-term employment of emergency service workers and other individual and organisational outcomes. Operational workloads affect ambulance officers’ ability to work and also contribute to psychological stress. People management systems and support mechanisms are often not configured to minimise these stressors. This project expects to develop people-management strategies for organisations in difficult environments like emergency services. In turn, emergency service workers should provide better services for patients. Field of research: 1503 - Business and Management

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Economically efficient green logistics through cyber physical systems. Economically efficient green logistics through cyber physical systems. This project aims to realize green logistics by researching how to run diesel-powered heavy-duty milk trucks economically and efficiently on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and demonstrating to logistics companies that LNG conversion will reduce operating costs and emissions. Transportation systems account for 18% of Australia's carbon emissions, and diesel-powered logistics vehicles are a major contributor. However, converting these trucks to LNG requires strong evidence to convince logistics companies of the benefits of shifting to green logistics. An increase in logistics productivity is expected to increase Australia’s gross domestic product by $2 billion, while this research should also provide vital data on sustainability issues and LNG conversions. Field of research: 1503 - Business and Management

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Sumatra’s role in ancient human movements and evolution. This project aims to test whether humans moving through Southeast Asia used a savannah corridor, facilitating their migrations into Sumatra and Java, and examine the effect of rainforests on human movements and evolution. This will be accomplished by examining ecological proxies from vertebrate remains found in established and newly identified fossil sites in Sumatra. These results are expected to provide a new understanding of the environmental context of human evolution in Asia, and identify routes ancient people took as they moved south through Asia and into Australia. Field of research: 0403 - Geology