UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

GrantConnect (Australian Government grants) · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Novel Biofertiliser for Sustainable Agriculture: Tackling Phosphorus... Category: Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) Research

GrantConnect (Australian Government grants) · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Novel Biofertiliser for Sustainable Agriculture: Tackling Phosphorus... Category: Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) Research

GrantConnect (Australian Government grants) · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Resilient free-space optical precise positioning and time... Category: Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) Research

GrantConnect (Australian Government grants) · FY 2024 · 2024-06

National Australian Cardiac CT PlatformFor Automated Cardiac CT... Category: Health and Medical Research

GrantConnect (Australian Government grants) · FY 2024 · 2024-03

Comparative and cost effectiveness of different protocols of pentosan... Category: Health and Medical Research

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Transforming clean hydrogen production by photothermal catalysis . Hydrogen as an energy source is considered a key tool for cutting carbon emissions and combating climate change, but current production methods are costly and/or energy-intensive. This project aims to facilitate large-scale “green” hydrogen production based on solar power. It expects to generate new knowledge in this innovative field, with anticipated outcomes to include development of the technological means to produce green hydrogen at a cost and on a scale that allow it to become an integral part of the sustainable energy mix. The project should deliver significant benefits, including an important new strategy for helping to achieve decarbonisation, both in Australia and overseas, and a major boost to Australia's future hydrogen economy. Field of research: 4018 - Nanotechnology This project will tackle research gaps relating to the knowledge and technology required to cost-effectively produce clean hydrogen, on an industrial scale. Addressing those gaps will help Australia to profit from a future hydrogen economy, and will also provide a powerful tool to help the country meet its carbon emission reduction commitments and slow climate change, the impacts of which are already being felt in many economic and environmental sectors nationally. Nanotechnology-driven solar energy conversion to clean hydrogen will be invented to underpin new commercial, industrial opportunities. This project expects to deliver a revolutionary strategy for solar-to-hydrogen conversion, including new catalyst materials, clean hydrogen production technology, and new and advanced knowledge in photothermal catalysis. This will be achieved by addressing the research gaps of low efficiencies in photochemical hydrogen evolution and critical operation conditions in thermochemical hydrogen evolution. This research will benefit Australia by better utilising our natural gas and abundant solar energy, which is of critical importance to Australia’s next-generation energy and environment sustainability. The outcomes will contribute to the Climate Change Act 2022 and National Hydrogen Strategy 2019, thereby directly contributing to the economic advancement and a greener environment for the nation and the world.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Recirculating Indigenous traveling songs. This project aims to develop new understandings of how unrestricted Indigenous traveling songs have spread across vast geographic and linguistic boundaries in Australia, investigating ways these songs can contribute to greater social connectedness today. It intends to energise collaborative networks across Indigenous communities, language centres, and holding institutions around the world. Forging models to reinvigorate the performance of traveling songs across a wide and diverse range of interconnected localities, this project should advance the potential for Indigenous performance culture to contribute to language revitalisation, cultural identity, and the facilitation of cross-cultural diplomacy in national and international contexts. Field of research: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History Indigenous traveling songs were once the most popular and widespread music in Australia. They have long histories of public performance in many regional areas, freely crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries. Like many Indigenous languages, Indigenous traveling songs are critically endangered and very few people with knowledge of them remain. This project will work with Indigenous communities and collecting institutions to conduct archival research to uncover, identify, and share Indigenous traveling songs. By increasing understanding of open and unrestricted traveling songs, this project will enhance Australia’s cultural heritage, directly contribute to Closing the Gap, and build capacity for greater incorporation of Indigenous performance in the creative industries, tourism, and education. After initially working with Indigenous communities to consolidate a repertoire traveling songs appropriate for sharing with the public, the project team will facilitate singing workshops and performance events, while simultaneously developing digital resources to sustain Indigenous traveling songs into the future.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Unlocking new generation physical modelling with realistic soil response. This project will improve the safety and efficiency of geo-structures associated with offshore wind developments by better characterising and replicating the behaviour of carbonate sediments. Novel characterisation techniques will be used to better understand the links between the chemical and structural composition of the sediments and their engineering properties relevant to geotechnical design, and how to better replicate carbonate sediment behaviour in a laboratory – an outcome that has eluded researchers for decades. The main outcomes of the project will be the development of soil sample reconstitution techniques enabling high-fidelity physical modelling to be undertaken to assist in the design offshore wind turbine foundations. Field of research: 4005 - Civil Engineering Australia has a legislated target of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 and will invest heavily in offshore wind to achieve this. Rapid growth in this sector mirrors earlier expansion of the oil & gas sector, and will bring similar benefit to the nation. The majority of offshore wind turbines will be founded in (carbonate) seabeds – which have behaviour that is notoriously difficult to predict, and plagued early offshore projects with expensive foundation failures. The wind sector cannot afford such a learning curve. This project will avoid this by (i) developing techniques to replicate the behaviour of carbonate soil; and (ii) demonstrating these approaches will facilitate new generation of model testing to underpins the safe and reliable design of foundation for wind turbines for Australian conditions.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Revitalising Wunda shields: Safeguarding endangered cultural practices. This project investigates endangered shield-making practices of northwest Western Australia and explores the potential of cultural revitalisation. By researching existing museum holdings of Wunda Shields in Australia and overseas, this project expects to generate new forms of knowledge that have been ignored or misunderstood by the archive. Developing a Digital Keeping Place that can re-house the Wunda Shields and re-prioritise Indigenous curatorial methodologies, these shields will be re-circulated through descendant communities to encourage shield revitalisation. Renewing the knowledge of Wunda shields, the outcomes of this project are expected to inform intangible cultural heritage projects and contribute to Indigenous wellbeing. Field of research: 4501 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, Language and History This research expands existing understandings of how material and cultural practices contribute to Indigenous well-being and social cohesion in regional Indigenous contexts. It is focused on Wunda shields, historically made by the Yamatji people of northwest Western Australia and the potential for the revitalisation of shield-making practices. Wunda shields were collected widely by early anthropologists but have been misrepresented in archives. Employing digital repatriation methods, this research addresses the significant knowledge gaps of Wunda shields in Australian and international collections and recirculates this knowledge to descendant communities. Customarily used by men, the collection of shields disarmed communities. In contrast, this project seeks to renew and resurface the knowledge of Wunda shields and invite shield-making as a form of cultural empowerment. Offering government agencies and cultural institutions a model of digital repatriation and cultural revitalisation, this project contributes to the strength and diversity of Australia's intangible cultural heritage and Indigenous well-being.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

A liquid protein platform for dynamic bio-inspired reaction compartments. This project aims to investigate liquid protein as a novel material for biotechnology by producing protein droplets with a range of material and structural properties and assess the activity of internalised enzymes. The project will combine concepts from protein-based subcellular super-structure and enzyme protein structure and apply cutting-edge biochemistry methods to study how catalysis can be controlled and directed through liquid protein design. Expected outcomes include a new platform for using protein droplets to engineer dynamic catalytic compartments, strong international and interdisciplinary collaborations, and a knowledge-base for building synthetic biology tools and technologies for future green chemistry-based industries. Field of research: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology Enzymes are the ‘builders’ inside cells, assembling the molecules that the organism needs to survive, grow, and reproduce. The remarkable efficiency of enzymes has sparked great interest from the biotechnology field in using them to build molecules such as vitamins, antibiotics and the mRNA found in RNA vaccines. However, when enzymes are removed from cells for these purposes, they do not work as well as expected because the liquid inside cells has properties that are vital for enzyme function. This project will unlock the secrets of these liquids, and determine how we can produce liquids similar to those inside cells that will allow us to fully harness the power of enzymes for efficient and environmentally-friendly chemical manufacturing. Via existing industry connections, the resulting technology could be rapidly adopted by the growing number of mRNA manufacturing facilities in Australia, providing economic benefits for Australia in an industry with a market value projected to reach $23 billion by 2035.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

A quantum telescope for extremely high-resolution imaging. This project will combine world-leading Australian signal stabilisation technology with recent developments in quantum sensors to demonstrate the world’s first quantum telescope. This project expects to demonstrate that quantum detectors can feasibly link optical telescopes, separated by hundreds of kilometres, to achieve extremely high-resolution imaging. Expected outcomes are the development of technologies that will enable imaging with resolution more than 20 times better than any existing telescope. This will provide significant benefits for astronomy, space situational awareness, and defence. Field of research: 5108 - Quantum Physics Due to recent large Government investments in space exploration, Australia has become a world leader in telescope technology. We have numerous excellent telescopes, but there is significant scope to improve the quality of the images they generate. This project will develop technology that will result in the generation of images that are 1000 times clearer, and allow us to study planets outside of our solar system, the behaviour of black holes, and the origins of star systems like our own. This technology will also have more immediate economic and practical benefits to Australians by enabling better satellite imaging for Earth observation such as crop monitoring and resource exploration, as well as better imaging and tracking of spacecraft and space debris in Earth’s orbit, safeguarding satellites we use for communications, navigation, and disaster response. Adoption of the outcomes of this work will be through future work with the international astronomy community, and with defence who will be able to use the improved imaging technology to keep critical satellites safe from collisions with space debris.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Ecological and phylogenomic insights into infectious diseases in animals. This project aims to address major knowledge gaps in our understanding of Clostridium difficile, a leading cause of severe gastrointestinal disease in animals. The project is expected to define the epidemiology of C. difficile infection in Australian horses, characterise the genetic and phenotypic traits of C. difficile strains causing equine disease and develop a new tool for enhanced genomic tracking of C. difficile in animals. These outcomes will support strategies by the veterinary sector to improve the detection, prevention and control of C. difficile infections in animals, providing long-term socio-economic benefits arising from reduced incidence and mortality associated with C. difficile infections in Australian horses and livestock. Field of research: 3107 - Microbiology Bacterial infections are a threat to animal health and biosecurity worldwide. One so-called “superbug”, Clostridium difficile or ‘Cdiff’, is a leading cause of life-threatening diarrhea in animals, resulting in economic loss to both livestock and horse-racing industries. Currently, an understanding of how, where and why Cdiff causes infections in Australian horses is lacking, hindering opportunities to improve animal health and/or productivity. By unravelling and exploiting the genetic code of the bacterium, this project is a unique opportunity for major advancements in our understanding of the causes and impact of Cdiff infections in Australian horse populations including how this complex pathogen evolves and is transmitted between animal hosts. The national benefit for the thoroughbred horse and livestock industries will be realised through new and enhanced diagnostic tools for veterinarians to detect, survey, prevent and control Cdiff infections in Australian animals, ultimately improving animal health and productivity.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Advancing plant synthetic gene circuit capability, robustness, and use. This project aims to advance our ability to control gene expression in plants using synthetic gene circuits. By expanding the toolkit and optimizing circuit components, we aim to achieve more complex capabilities and robust implementation. Furthermore, we will apply gene circuit technologies to enhance plant frost tolerance. The expected project outcomes include a significant advance in gene circuit capabilities, a better understanding of their behavior in plant cells, and the ability to use them to confer advantageous traits. The benefits of this research include new plant biotechnology tools that will underpin future crop yield improvements, and advances in plant-based pharmaceuticals and materials. Field of research: 3101 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology Modern plant biotechnology relies heavily on controlling gene activity to change plant functions and confer valuable agronomic traits. However, our ability to precisely manipulate gene activity to engineer plant form and function remains rudimentary, precluding the advanced manipulation to improve crop yields and resilience. We aim to solve this problem by significantly extending our recent successful demonstration of gene circuit technologies in plants, with sights set on applying these tools to improve stress tolerance in an increasingly unstable climate. This research will strengthen Australia’s investment in synthetic biology, which is poised to transform existing agricultural industries and provide new opportunities for Australian food production. It will further establish Australia as an international hub for plant synthetic biology, spurring a burgeoning national biotech industry and accelerating production of next-generation crops with new traits and improved tolerance to extreme environmental conditions. To promote our research achievements beyond academia, we will continue to engage with media and students spanning the education spectrum to broaden public understanding of our research and engage in ongoing dialogue regarding its implications. We will directly engage with industry, and build new collaborative links with government and primary industry research bodies to develop enhanced plant varieties and promote translation and industry adoption of our research.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Three-dimensional solar-energy-driven hydrogen generation from ammonia. This project aims to address the challenges of hydrogen generation, transportation and storage by conceptualising a novel three-dimensional, solar-driven system for ammonia splitting on ultralight catalyst materials. The project expects to generate new knowledge in the area of advanced materials enabled hydrogen technologies through interdisciplinary approaches involving materials science, novel catalysis, and nanotechnology. Expected outcomes include new catalyst materials, design strategies, and advanced ammonia splitting technologies. This should provide significant benefits, such as newly created knowledge, technological innovation, research training, contributing to hydrogen economy and net zero for a greener environment. Field of research: 4016 - Materials Engineering This project addresses the challenges of hydrogen: its safe storage, cost-effective transportation and clean production, by utilising the concept of Ammonia = Hydrogen 2.0. The high-density hydrogen storage medium, i.e., ammonia, is chosen to develop a clean, innovative, safe and efficient technology for on-site hydrogen production. The storage and transportation of ammonia in place of hydrogen mitigates the demanding conditions and costs to infrastructure and operation. To this end, efficient and stable ultralight nanocatalysts will be developed to enable a novel three-dimensional solar-to-hydrogen platform that produces green hydrogen from ammonia splitting, contributing to zero emissions. This single innovation has the potential to solve the multiple challenges facing the future hydrogen economy. This project can enhance Australia's global competitiveness in ammonia energy utilisation and green hydrogen production and position Australia as a major global player. The research outcomes of this project will be used as the foundation for future scale-up and pilot studies, where commercialisation could be achieved for feasible, cost-effective, safe, and on-site hydrogen production, helping Australia develop a future solar hydrogen economy. This project will also contribute to the Climate Change Bill 2022 and Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy 2019.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Control of crop-microbe symbiosis by new plant hormones. This project aims to discover how plants use hormone-like chemicals, called butenolides, to control symbiotic relationships with soil fungi. It will use multidisciplinary and collaborative techniques to establish how butenolide metabolism affects the diversity of fungal colonisation. Expected outcomes of this project include a deeper understanding of how plants regulate the competency of roots to host symbiotic fungi, and how this affects plant growth. As such, it will generate knowledge of how cereals such as barley could be modified to improve their nutrient use efficiency. Benefits of this project include the potential to reduce fertiliser inputs, thereby improving the competitiveness and environmental impact of Australian agriculture. Field of research: 3108 - Plant Biology Australian soils are often low in nutrients like phosphate, so farmers use non-renewable chemical fertilisers to add more. However, many crops are able to form a natural partnership with fungi that help the plant collect phosphate, so less fertiliser is required. This project seeks to understand how the partnership operates in barley, Australia’s second most valuable cereal crop. We have identified a chemical signalling system in plants that allows the fungus to access the plant roots, but we don’t know how this system operates. We also don’t understand whether the signalling system works with different kinds of fungi, or how modifying it will affect plant growth and performance. This research will generate knowledge that could have the benefit of reducing the use of chemical fertilisers and water. This will improve the environmental footprint and reliability of Australia’s food supply, and strengthen our agricultural sector. End-users of this research would include farmers and land managers, but also manufacturers of soil additives for different kinds of land use.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Improving the effectiveness of marine habitat restoration. Habitat restoration is a global priority to halt and reverse declines in biodiversity, but many of these efforts fail to achieve these goals. This project aims to improve the outcomes of marine habitat restoration through greater consideration of animal behaviour. Insights into how animals evaluate restored habitats and which components of habitats are most important to animals are essential but missing ingredients in modern restoration methodology. By applying novel experimental and modelling approaches to current marine habitat restoration programs, this project will generate new knowledge to underpin a fundamental change in how natural resource managers restore marine habitats, with significantly improved outcomes for biodiversity. Field of research: 3103 - Ecology Climate change and other human stressors have led to extensive loss of Australia’s coastal and marine habitats. The resulting declines in socio-economic, cultural and environmental values provided by these habitats directly affects the 85% of Australians that live within 50km of the ocean. While considerable effort and expense are currently being leveraged to restore these habitats, how, when and where habitat restoration should best be undertaken remains an important research gap. This project will improve knowledge about how animals respond to and benefit from shellfish reef and kelp forest restoration efforts, which will contribute to more effective methods for restoring these habitats. As Australia’s coastal and marine habitats are projected to generate an economy worth $100 billion annually by 2025, this research will also have major economic and commercial benefits for Australia. Partnerships with government and non-government organisations will ensure that the research findings are fully implemented and explored, leading to improved biodiversity outcomes from coastal and marine habitat restoration projects in Australia.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

3D Diffusion Models for Generating and Understanding 3D Scenes. Diffusion models, such as DALL-E2 and Imagen, have achieved remarkable success in generating photorealistic images and hold promise to solve long-standing computer vision problems. However, 3D scene generation remains unexplored. This research project aims to bridge the gap by developing 3D diffusion models capable of generating complete 3D scenes. This will advance our theoretical understanding of diffusion in complex 3D environments and open up new possibilities for applications in fields such as virtual reality, architecture, and city planning. The proposed 3D diffusion models will also enhance the accuracy of computer vision tasks related to 3D scene understanding, such as object detection, tracking, and semantic segmentation. Field of research: 4603 - Computer Vision and Multimedia Computation This primary goal of this project is to tackle practical research challenges in transport and advanced manufacturing, in line with Australia's research piorities. The project aims to improve logistics, urban design, autonomous systems, sensor technologies, real time data and spatial analysis. The outcomes of this project will benefit various application areas, such as virtual and augmented reality, which can use the project's outcomes to create 3D scenes for training and educational purposes, as well as for architectural design, both for interior building design and outdoor urban areas. This can aid in designing buildings, living spaces, and in city planning. Diffusion models can potentially improve the performance of computer vision tasks related to 3D scene understanding such as object detection, classification, tracking and semantic segmentation, which are crucial for autonomous systems that rely on vision. Outcomes of this project will essentially equip such systems with reliable vision, enabling them to make intelligent decisions such as navigation, precise object detection, localization and pose estimation for interaction with various objects. Overall, this project has significant implications for Australia's competitiveness in the ongoing race for Artificial Intelligence leadership among advanced nations, as it seeks to push the boundaries of 3D scene generation and understanding through diffusion probabilistic modeling.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Australian Legacies of British Slavery: Capital, Land and Labour. This project aims to bring Australia into the global history of slavery by exploring the legacies of British slavery in South Australia and Victoria. Through developing methods for biographical research and digital mapping, it will trace the movement of capital, people and culture from slave-owning Britain to the new settler colonies, and produce a new history of the continuing impact of slavery wealth in shaping colonial immigration, investment, and law. Expected outcomes of this project include enhanced capacity to build international disciplinary collaborations, new research methods, and research capacity building. Benefits include a radically new perspective on Australian history and abolition in the present, with major public outcomes. Field of research: 4303 - Historical Studies The project aims to re-write Australian history by revealing the hidden story of our links to British slavery. We will explore the movement of capital, people and culture from slave-owning Britain to South Australia and Victoria, both colonies founded immediately after abolition (1833) as alternative sites of investment for slavery ‘compensation’ funds paid to slave-owners. By advancing new research methods of digital mapping, new biographical methods in collaboration with the Australian Dictionary of Biography, archival research and analysis by an international team, it will have considerable benefit in research training and development and increase Australia’s capacity to build international disciplinary collaborations. The project will have major cultural benefits in leading public conversation regarding ‘Difficult Histories’. It will provide context for current global campaigns against human trafficking involving Australia as a destination and in commercial supply chains. The project will communicate this new history to a broad mainstream audience via major public outcomes in partnership with leading heritage organisations, the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) and the History Trust of South Australia. Through interpretive and educational programs, and public events, delivered collaboratively with the NTV and HTSA, we will translate and share findings with a very wide audience.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

The Misinformation Future—Confronting Emerging Threats. Misinformation presents challenges to public health and democracy. Though psychological research has explored processing mechanisms and countermeasures, new threats are arising that need to be confronted. This project aims to help meet these threats by (a) investigating misinformation impacts on future-oriented cognition and behaviours, with a focus on global long-term issues and (b) addressing the unique challenges posed by visual and synthetic (AI-generated) misinformation. The expected outcome is new knowledge on the processing and impacts of emerging types of misinformation and translation into practical interventions. These promise to benefit consumers, educators and policymakers, contributing to a healthier information environment. Field of research: 5204 - Cognitive and Computational Psychology Misinformation is presenting challenges to public health, education, and science communication. Through its influence on public debate, it also has adverse impacts for journalism, policymaking, and ultimately democracy—if citizens no longer agree on basic facts, then polarization, conflict, and poor policy outcomes ensue. Thus far, psychological misinformation research has focused largely on self-report measures and textual misinformation, mostly neglecting effects on actual behaviours and novel media such as video and text generated by artificial intelligence (AI). This project will use innovative tools to investigate misinformation effects on future-oriented decision-making and behaviour, focusing on long-term global challenges including climate change and pandemics, and the emerging threats of visual and AI-generated misinformation. This will not only improve our understanding of the psychological mechanisms involved, but will deliver tools to reduce misinformation impacts that will be useful for consumers, journalists, and educators. The project will influence debates about legislation and national security, and will inform both policymaking and the development of technological and regulatory solutions. In keeping with the team’s public-engagement record and supported by a pathway-to-impact plan, we will disseminate findings widely through open-access publications, publicly available handbooks, our extensive professional networks, and a global and local media presence.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Galaxy evolution in high definition with the world's largest telescopes. This project aims to determine where, when, and how galaxies formed their stars in the key epoch spanning the first four billion years of the Universe’s history. Astronomy has entered a new era with the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the most powerful telescopes ever built. Together, they provide the sharpest and most complete view of distant, young galaxies ever achieved. This project will use cutting-edge ALMA and JWST observations to produce high-definition maps of the physical parameters of young galaxies through innovative analysis techniques. The project will enhance Australia's standing in astrophysical research, while inspiring the next generation of STEM students and workers. Field of research: 5101 - Astronomical Sciences Understanding how galaxies such as our own Milky Way have formed and evolved over the 13.5 billion years of cosmic history is one of the key goals of modern astrophysics. This is one of the driving forces behind technological innovations and multi-billion dollar international investments to build powerful telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA). Australia is a world-leading astrophysics research nation. The current strategic partnership with the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the leadership in the upcoming Square Kilometre Array, and the rapid development of the space sector, show that it wants to continue to lead this field. This project offers an opportunity for Australia to enhance its scientific standing and space strengths by playing a major role in the scientific discoveries enabled by JWST and ALMA. It will also lay the foundation of a future ALMA science centre in Australia in anticipation of possible full membership in ESO. This project will not only create new knowledge about our Universe, but it will importantly contribute to establishing Australia as a STEM-savvy nation. Astronomy has long been considered a ‘gateway’ science that captures the public’s imagination, so the results will be widely shared with the public. This project will also train students and early career researchers, providing critical thinking and data analysis skills that are now, more than ever, needed in the modern workforce.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Identifying potential trade-offs of adapting to climate change. Climate change and marine heatwaves introduce strong, directional selection for heat tolerance which, in turn, alters the genetic composition and diversity of marine species. While this may facilitate adaptation to warmer conditions, reduced genetic diversity may limit resilience or cause maladaptation to additional stressors. This project will focus on habitat-forming kelps and will aim to both assess the negative consequences of rapid selection and to disentangle the mechanisms of climate adaptation. Through a powerful combination of controlled experiments on known genotypes and cutting-edge transcriptomic approaches, this project will transform our understanding of the adaptability of foundation species in a rapidly changing ocean. Field of research: 3103 - Ecology Kelp forests are some of the most ecologically and economically important marine habitats covering approximately 1/3 of the world's coastlines and more than 8,000km of shoreline in Australia alone. Kelp forests are threatened in Australia and globally by climate change and associated marine heatwaves which can drive transitions to less desirable ecosystems with lost ecosystem services estimated at ~$1,000,000 per km of coastline per year. This project will transform our understanding of how heat tolerance is determined, how it evolves and whether there are trade-offs associated with rapid or assisted adaptation to climate warming. This project will position Australia at the frontline of the international efforts to understand and mitigate the impacts of climate change with research aimed at preventing the negative socio-economic impacts of ecosystem collapse. The project is strongly aligned with the Australian government priority area of assessing environmental change.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Investigating a novel genetic strategy for insect resistance in crops. Plants are in a constant battle with insect pests and there is an increasing reliance on chemical inputs for control. However there are incoming bans on some pesticides, and new approaches are required for pest management. The aim of this project is to develop a new strategy which exploits the dependence of herbivorous insects on phytosterols. Here, we will apply the latest genomics technologies in plants to produce non-utilizable sterols which will not support insect growth and reproduction, but will still allow the plant to function normally. We will demonstrate this in the important crop canola. Translation of this knowledge will support breeding for crop resilience, leading to durable resistance and more sustainable crop production. Field of research: 3004 - Crop and Pasture Production Rapid advances in genomic technologies are changing our understanding of biology and evolution, with opportunities for agriculture. Globally, pests lead to huge yield loss in crop and food production and cultivated species contain little natural resistance to these pests. These pests are often difficult to control with pesticides. This project will identify and characterise genes that control sterol production in plants. Insects cannot produce their own cholesterol and rely on certain plant sterols for this. Through changing these sterols the plant produces using novel genomic techniques we will study how they affect insect resistance. This information can be used to design a novel strategy for insect resistance to breed insect resistant plants and increase crop yields. The results will be translated for industry through the identification of new resistance genes for major Brassica insects. This can be applied to all crop species in future. The ultimate goal is to ensure that there is enough food to feed the growing population and have an armoury of genes that can be deployed rather than using chemical inputs. This project will accelerate crop breeding, ensuring food security and supporting rural economies.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Accelerating pulse breeding using machine learning. Advances in genomics and high throughput phenotyping are generating vast quantities of data that can be applied for crop improvement, however the lack of computational analysis tools and approaches limits the full exploitation of this data. Pulse legumes are currently under utilised in Australian agriculture due to poor adaptation, however they offer significant benefits both for soil improvement and the production of high protein crops. This project will develop machine learning (ML) tools for the analysis of pulse legume crop traits and their association with genomic variation to accelerate the breeding of high performance pulse legumes for Australian growers. Field of research: 3001 - Agricultural Biotechnology Understanding how variation in the structure of DNA in plants affects how they grow has implications for agriculture. One of the global problems is food security, being able to grow enough food for the expanding population in the face of climate change. Therefore, scientists are trying to find new ways to increase crop yields. Our proposed project aims to use the massive amount of crop data being generated to understand how differences in DNA change crop growth which will help in breeding better crops. The expected outcomes of our project are more reliable crop yields to support Australian rural economies and global food security as well as training staff and students in this growing field of research.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Foundations for offshore wind turbines in Australian carbonate seabed soils. This projects aims to enable performance prediction of foundations for offshore wind turbines in the challenging carbonate sandy sediments which are prevalent offshore Australia. This is significant for an emerging industry with each project costing tens of billions of dollars and foundations accounting for a quarter of the development cost. This project expects to provide guidance for these complex different soil conditions that is based on advanced understanding obtained from innovative experimental and numerical techniques. Expected outcomes include de-risking through significantly reduced uncertainties. This research should therefore lead to significant economic and societal benefits of affordable clean energy and generation of jobs. Field of research: 4005 - Civil Engineering This project is timely for the emerging Australian offshore wind industry as current understanding and prediction of foundation response relates to North sea conditions. The carbonate sands that are typical in Australia behave very differently. These are the types of soil that led to remediation costing hundreds of millions of dollars in the early days of the oil and gas industry. Large diameter monopiles supporting offshore wind turbines experience millions of lateral loading cycles, which differs substantially from the conditions of oil and gas platform piles and is hence beyond current understanding. Therefore, neither the experience from the overseas offshore wind industry nor the Australian oil and gas industry can ensure safe, reliable foundation design for offshore wind turbines in Australian carbonate sandy seabed conditions. Advanced understanding minimises uncertainty and identifies optimisation potential. Foundations account for a quarter of the development cost and each offshore wind farm costs of the order of ten billion dollars. Offshore wind is a key clean energy technology with proven benefits of job creation, powering manufacturing and economic value-add. This research should therefore lead to significant economic and societal benefits of affordable clean energy and jobs generation.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Bandgap engineered bismuth chalcogenides for uncooled infrared detectors. Uncooled infrared detectors are core enabling technologies in civilian and defense applications such as night vision, surveillance, automated driving, and firefighting. However, the industry application of two-dimensional materials in uncooled infrared detectors is hindered by their low device performance and poor fabrication scalability. This project aims to develop low-cost, high performance uncooled infrared detectors with high fabrication scalability by growing bandgap engineered two-dimensional bismuth chalcogenides with controlled doping and enhanced light absorption. This will place Australia in a very competitive position in the billion-dollar uncooled infrared detector market whilst benefit relevant Australian industry sectors. Field of research: 4016 - Materials Engineering High performance uncooled infrared detectors are core technologies for various civilian and defense applications such as night vision, surveillance, automated driving, firefighting, environment monitoring, and many others. They present a multi-billion-dollar market which is currently dominated by overseas manufacturers. Despite the intensive research on two dimensional materials for fabricating uncooled infrared detectors, their industry applications have been hindered by low device performance and poor fabrication scalability. This project will combat this research gap and provide low-cost solutions through industry-breaking technologies that will solve these prevalent issues. This project will place Australia in the forefront of this technology, and enable Australia to be first to the market. The availability of this new technology will contribute to the long-term development of relevant core Australian industry sectors, and thus benefit the Australian economy, society, environment, national security and international image. Any outcomes deemed patentable will be lodged with the patent office, and outcomes of significant technology developments will be presented in public lectures and relevant industry forums with the aim of translating them to industry manufacturing, production, and potential export.