University of New South Wales

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Novel Hydrophobic Concrete for Durable and Resilient Mining Infrastructure. The mining field is harsh with various corrosive media that cause rapid deterioration and ageing of concrete. This project aims to develop a novel hydrophobic concrete with integrated water-proofing and self-healing capacities and optimise its efficacy and cost-effectiveness for durable and resilient mining infrastructure using hybrid water-repellent nanoparticles and raw crystalline admixtures. The new hydrophobic concrete is expected to significantly improve structural safety, durability, and service life of mining infrastructure while simultaneously reducing protection costs, repair needs, and reconstruction. The outcomes will offer desirable benefits for Australia’s mining industry, with significant reductions in maintenance costs. Field of research: 4005 - Civil Engineering The mining sector is a cornerstone of Australia’s economy, accounting for around 10% of total GDP. However, due to the harsh condition and corrosive media in the mining field, concrete infrastructure deteriorates and ages quickly over time. As traditional protection methods are ineffective, it is necessary to provide new measures to reduce maintenance costs and extend service life. This project aims to develop a new integral hydrophobic concrete with integrated waterproofing and self-healing capacities to improve mining infrastructure’s safety, efficiency, and service life in response to this durability challenge. The new knowledge of this innovative integral hydrophobic concrete will significantly reduce the costs of protection and maintenance by up to 50% for the mining industry and provide better durability and resilience. Therefore, the safety and serviceability of mining infrastructure will be improved by adopting this hydrophobic product, thus lowering costs, frequent repairs, and reconstruction. Importantly, this new admixture product will provide significant economic and safety benefits for the construction industry and government organisations to introduce the new product to the market, which will create significant opportunities for use by the Australian mining and construction sectors, promoting more durable and resilient infrastructure across the country.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Solar E-Waste in Africa: facilitating the right to repair. This project aims to investigate the issue of solar e-waste in Sub Saharan Africa – an outcome of the global transition to renewable energy – and emergent local repair geographies equipped to address this challenge. This project is designed to generate new knowledge regarding solar e-waste using interdisciplinary approaches to critically map the issue and assess the viability and justice implications of possible product repair solutions. Expected outcomes of this project include a detailed understanding of the solar e-waste problem in Global South settings, and an assessment of local repair approaches. This will provide significant benefits for actors in Sub Saharan and similar Global South contexts grappling with solar e-waste. Field of research: 4406 - Human Geography This project will address the growing issue of solar e-waste in Africa by working with solar enterprises and the not-profit sector to developed greater opportunities for solar repair. This will include work in developing an app and informational wiki that will increase the capacity of local electronic repairers in rural Africa to be able to fix solar power products. The app and wiki are to be designed in manner, so that they can be used by households and repairers across the Global South. This work contributes to Australia’s work in promoting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, in particular its objective on ensuring sustainable energy for all by the year 2030. This project, thus, draws on Australia’s leading expertise in the area of photovoltaic technologies to explore local forms of repair as a solution to the growing issues of solar e-waste in the Global South .

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Sustainable and robust Australian Ni-based superalloy manufacturing. This project aims to solve challenges related to microstructural defect formation in the manufacturing of a critical Ni-based superalloy. It will generate new knowledge on its microstructure evolution and defect origin via a combined experimental and computational approach. Expected outcomes are advanced manufacturing routes with higher yield of defect free materials, using more scrap as input. This will enable robust and sustainable alloy manufacturing for power generation, defence, and aerospace industries. Commercial benefits are opportunities to domestically source alloys with reduced dependency on international trade. Environmental and societal benefits include lower emissions due to better mechanical design and workforce training. Field of research: 4016 - Materials Engineering This project aims to develop more sustainable and robust manufacturing routes for a critical alloy required for applications in harsh conditions in power generation, defence, and aerospace. Such materials must fulfil several specification criteria to perform safely under high mechanical loads, and in hot and corrosive environments. The current manufacturing route often leads to defect formation, making this expensive alloy unfit for purpose and fail specifications, especially if higher fractions of scrap are used as input for economical and sustainability reasons. This project will advance the understanding of defect formation, develop computational models to predict defect free processing conditions using higher fractions of scrap, and update the industrial process at an Australian manufacturer. Commercial and economic benefits include local sourcing of high-quality alloy materials with reduced dependency on international trade, increased yield, and reduced cost, to keep up with growing demands by customers in power generation, defence, and aerospace. Environmental and societal benefits include reduced emissions due to better mechanical design, superior safety due to reduced material failure, and workforce training. The findings will be translatable to advance manufacturing routes of other high-performance alloys. This will be realised in future projects with the partner company and their customers, and via technology licensing to new industry partners via our networks.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Improving long term forecasts of tree growth in carbon farming projects. Australia is taking action to limit global warming, including use of "carbon farming" to capture CO2 using trees as natural carbon sinks. Limited knowledge on the growth rate of Mulga trees, a primary carbon sink, hampers our partner organisation’s ability to maximise carbon stores. The aim of this proposal is to use dendrochronology to inform novel predictive models for growth of mulga trees that will reduce uncertainty in carbon removal forecasts. The expected outcome will be significant and benefit our partner organisation and other agencies by providing improved forecasting of tree growth that will inform their decisions for investment in carbon farming and nature repair markets. Field of research: 4101 - Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation The national interest of this project is to address the threat of climate change to Australia's economic and natural systems by developing accurate methods for forecasting carbon sequestration of tree regeneration projects. The project aims to increase the capacity of organisations engaged in carbon farming to accurately forecast carbon stores and economic returns. We will develop a predictive ecosystem model for Australia's widespread mulga woodlands. This project will use radiocarbon dating and tree rings to decode the growth patterns and lifespan of this important tree species to inform fundamental ecosystem processes. Better models, generated by this proposal, will benefit our partner organisation and other Australian organisations involved in carbon farming who require better forecasting of tree growth to inform their decisions to invest in carbon crediting and nature repair markets. Increasing confidence in these markets offers a pathway to massive economic, societal, and environmental benefits by providing financial incentives for carbon removal projects. Additionally, the models produced by this project are readily transferable to other ecosystems and therefore could be crucial for future management of Australian vegetation. Integrating improved predictive ecosystem models into environmental accounting and forecasting underpins Australia’s participation in twin the challenges of global decarbonisation and global restoration.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Optically Tunable Functional Nano-Coatings on Fly Ash-Based Ceramics. This waste reutilisation project develops a novel nanotechnology of coated fly ash particles to simulate titania as paint pigment/filler. The strategy uses a novel high-temperature injector fluidised bed reactor to make tunable coatings of graded SiO2/ZnO/TiO2 layers of increasing refractive index to enhance total internal reflection and scattering to increase whiteness and opacity; doping of the TiO2 neutralises colour and reduces paint chalking. These advanced nanoscale coated materials are a new direction for a long-term partnership between the CI and KIP in materials development. The laboratory- to pilot-scale manufacturing extension will enable high-volume use in paints generating significant economic and environmental outcomes. Field of research: 4018 - Nanotechnology There is increasing focus on environmental remediation and waste resource utilisation to combat issues of pollution and resource availability. Even with decreasing reliance on coal-fired power, there remains the need to remediate >18 megatonnes (MT) of the coal combustion by-product fly ash, which are stockpiled in landfill/tailings ponds/silos in Australia, leading to issues for land use and environmental contamination. There also are issues for titania, of which Australia has the major global reserves, which are costs (>A$2,800/tonne), strategic importance (national security), and environmental risks (acid processing). The project aims to address these problems by converting a low-value product (fly ash) into one of high-value (titania simulant). The initial target is as a pigment/filler in paints, the global industry of which is valued at A$251 billion p.a., although many other major markets are possible such as polymers. This nanotechnology involves the design of a new system for the engineering of fly ash scaffolds into advanced ceramics by sequential coating, heating, and reaction in a single integrated unit. These tunable nanoscale coatings are designed to mimic the shape and optical properties of titania while enhancing the whiteness and opacity, reducing paint chalking, and reducing costs. This work is projected to utilise up to 1 MT p.a. of fly ash while reducing reliance on titania by up to 1.25 MT p.a., resulting in both economic and environmental imperatives.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

One biosensing technology for the continuous monitoring of many biomarkers. It has long been a goal to develop sensors that can continuously monitor biomarkers in complex samples because they would revolutionise environmental monitoring, food processing, biosecurity, infection detection and more. Electrochemical biosensors that employ DNA binding molecules have recently been able to achieve this goal. This fellowship and Nutromics Pty Ltd, a pioneer of electrochemical DNA sensors, will together solve surface chemistry challenges that will allow continuous sensing to be commercialised for the target market of wearable biochemical sensors. Nutromics will also develop a facility for other companies to commercialise DNA sensors for different applications so as to make Australia them world leaders in wearable sensors. Field of research: 3401 - Analytical Chemistry Being able to continuously monitor molecular species in biological samples was an unmet sensing need for decades until the invention in 2017 of electrochemical sensors that use sequences of DNA, called aptamers, to selectively and reversibly bind to molecules of interest. Melbourne based Nutromics have licensed this IP to commercialise this powerful technology. The proposed research will achieve this through understanding how the sensing interface operates at the single molecule level and using this knowledge to develop surface chemistries to make the aptamer sensors easier to manufacture, more reproducible, more stable and able to detect proteins as well as small molecules. Nutromics will leverage this research to bring this technology to their market of wearable sensors for personalised wellbeing. They will also build a facility to expedite commercialization of the technology by other companies concentrating on different markets. The implications of Nutromic’s success will be to revolutionise environmental monitoring, food processing, biosecurity, infection detection and wellbeing. The outcomes of this research will include commercial devices sold globally, training of the next generation of entrepreneurial researchers and the building of a sensing ecosystem right here in Australia. This will place Australia as the global leader in this powerful new era of wearable sensors that can continuously monitor analytes, a market worth many billions of dollars.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Foundations for leading the nature positive ecosystem conservation agenda. Ecosystems, vital to biodiversity and human wellbeing, are undergoing accelerated degradation. In 2022, 196 countries agreed to redress this crisis with renewed emphasis on ecosystem management and restoration. Australia’s lack of a fit-for-purpose ecosystem inventory hampers its ability to meet its commitment. Ahead of 2030 reporting milestones, this timely Fellowship will equip Australia with rigorous scientific foundations to support national strategies for ecosystem protection, management and restoration. It will deliver state-of the-art ecosystem data streams, advanced skills capacity and ground-breaking thematic risk assessments. These Australian innovations for ecosystem conservation will influence nature-positive agendas worldwide. Field of research: 4104 - Environmental Management Australian ecosystems are under increasing pressure, causing declines in biodiversity and natural capital. These assets are vital to Australia’s culture and economy. According to Australia’s new Nature Positive Plan, failure to prevent ongoing decline stems from inadequate whole-ecosystem management which is linked to a lack of fit-for-purpose national ecosystem inventory. This Fellowship will work with Commonwealth, state and international partners to overcome this gap and build capacity for nature-positive ecosystem management. Key project outputs include: 1 The first comprehensive, consistent national classification and map of ecosystems 2 State-of-the-art protocols for tracking ecosystem change 3 Training tools and activities to upskill government industry and community in use of ecosystem information 4 National ecosystem risk assessments to guide strategic risk-reduction This new research will be translated and adopted through transformational improvements in the National Reserve System, statutory protection of threatened ecosystems, ecologically sustainable development, investments in ecosystem restoration, climate change adaptation and more. Australian leadership on international 2030 conservation targets and global uptake in conservation policy and research agendas will globalise the research impact. This groundbreaking applied research will help sustain healthy ecosystems, with associated benefits to the health, social, economic and cultural wellbeing of Australians.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Cryogenic characterization platform for semiconductor quantum processors . This project addresses a critical challenge in the advancement of quantum computing. To enable the full commercial potential of quantum computing, quantum processors needs to scale to millions of qubits. Semiconductor spin qubit are a strong candidate, as research can leverage on traditional transistor manufacturing expertise. While traditional semiconductor testing methods offer a foundation, the unique demands of cryogenic testing of quantum metrics pose significant challenges. Our goal is to develop a rapid cryogenic spin qubit testing platform, ensuring that characterization scales with hardware complexity. This project is essential to propel quantum computing into a new era of technological innovation benefitting Australian society. Field of research: 4009 - Electronics, Sensors and Digital Hardware The technology to enable fabrication and characterization of scalable semiconductor quantum processor will position Australia at the forefront of commercialising quantum technologies, to be part of the $93 billion global industry by 2040. Australia has more than 20 years of quantum computing research experience and recently spun-off several startups such as Diraq, Q-Ctrl, Silicon Quantum Computing, and Quantum Brilliance focusing on building a commercial quantum computer. By working with Diraq Pty Ltd, this Fellowship will solve fundamental issues in the progress towards large scale quantum processors by developing a cryogenic quantum testing platform for rapid qubit characterization. This will pave the way to a feasible and manufacturable quantum processors, tailored for specific industry application and education purposes. The project is well aligned with the government initiative to promote and protect quantum technology by nurturing new quantum engineers, thereby increasing the talent pool in Australia’s quantum ecosystem.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Modeling the Diffusion of Evolving Rumours in Social Networks. This project aims to model the complex evolution and diffusion process of evolving rumours in social media. This project expects to develop new theories and associated techniques from operational research (adaptive genetic algorithms), mathematics (network theory), and machine learning (generative adversarial networks) to tackle the challenges in this project. This project aims to develop (1) novel models for the evolution of a rumour, (2) novel models for the diffusion of an evolving rumour, and (3) techniques for detecting the diffusion sources of the original rumour and its mutations. This not only will constitute a major advancement in the theory and application of rumour study but also lead the decision-makers in debunking rumours. Field of research: 4602 - Artificial Intelligence This proposal aims to develop new mathematical methods to understand rumour evolution and rumour diffusion in social networks. By integrating adaptive genetic algorithms from operational research with generative adversarial networks from machine learning, it will create new methods to characterise the evolution or adaptation of a rumour and reproduce the information flow of the rumour in social networks. These tools will allow the derivation of fundamental limits of predictability for artificial intelligence (AI) methods applied to digital data. New theories and mathematics of information flow will produce insights into social influence in online social networks. Benefits include: (1) better understanding of how network structure may impact on the mutation and diffusion of rumours, (2) predictive models for how misinformation can spread online, such as during an emergency, and (3) creating the capabilities to eliminate rumours, especially in critical events, such as Australia Federal Election and Australia's COVID-19 strategy, and positioning Australia as an international technology leader in rumour study.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Scalable state preparation and measurement techniques for spin qubits. This project aims to improve the performance of scalable sensors for the state preparation and measurement (SPAM) of semiconductor spin qubits developed by Silicon Quantum Computing. Through pulse engineering and protocols the SPAM errors using small footprint sensors will be pushed below the fault-tolerant threshold for quantum computing leading to their incorporation into a large-scale error corrected quantum computer. The expected outcomes of project include the discovery of novel SPAM processes that will benefit quantum computing companies in Australia focused on spin qubits. The project will therefore benefit researchers, industries, and further cement Australia's lead as a leader in the emerging quantum industry. Field of research: 5108 - Quantum Physics Quantum computing is predicted to be able to outperform certain calculations exponentially faster than the largest supercomputers. However, the current size and performance of quantum computers severely limits the algorithms that can be run successfully. To address these performance issues, quantum error correction can be implemented provided that the errors of the individual components of the quantum computer are lower than a certain threshold value. This means that not only do quantum computers require many more processing elements, they also need to maintain the low error rates along the way. The commercial potential of quantum computing is only now starting to be realised where Australia is recognised a global leader. At the Australian-based company Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) they developed a unique fabrication technique allowing the manufacturing of electronic devices with sub-nanometre precision. The manufacturing technique can be used to create all the building blocks of future quantum computers based on phosphorus atoms in silicon. The goals of this Fellowship is to leverage Australia's leading capability in commercial quantum computing to enable the development of scalable sensors for the next generation of silicon-based quantum processors. These sensors will then lead to future large-scale quantum computer with wide-reaching applications across several industrial sectors including finance, defence, and transportation.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Developing open energy system modelling to drive rapid decarbonisation. Abundant renewable and natural resources present a unique opportunity for Australia to become an economic superpower, as the global economy decarbonises. There is an urgent need for comprehensive modelling tools capable of providing the analytic insights necessary for decision makers across Australian policy and industry to realise this opportunity. This project will provide this in partnership with The Superpower Institute, a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting Australia’s energy transition. Through producing models for exploring transition pathways, and authoritative analysis on these, this project aims to help decision makers in Australia maximise the economic opportunities presented by realising rapid decarbonisation. Field of research: 4008 - Electrical Engineering Australia has some of the highest quality renewable energy and mineral resources in the world, essential to global decarbonisation. These resources present a comparative advantage and immense economic opportunity, if harnessed correctly. To realise this opportunity, there is an urgent need for comprehensive modelling tools to provide analytic insights to key policy and industry decision makers across Australia. In partnership with The Superpower Institute (TSI) this project will deliver open and accessible energy system models and an associated platform to provide insights into impacts and benefits of different energy transition to pathways. This will directly support evidence-based policy reforms and yield commercial outcomes particularly with respect to the development of industrial precincts powered by Australia’s high quality renewable resources. The project is explicitly designed to dovetail with TSI’s existing work providing roadmaps to government and industry on securing the economic benefits of a post-carbon world.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

How does the brain process conflicting information? Learning is the means by which we adapt to our environments. Occasionally, what we learn contradicts our present knowledge about the world. When this occurs, the old and new (contradictory) information compete for control over behaviour. Yet, how the brain processes contradictory information and resolves this competition is poorly understood. This project uses modern genetic tools in rodents to examine how the brain encodes and retrieves contradictory information to influence behaviour. The outcomes include new insights regarding the neural basis of adaptive behaviour; and the benefits include an understanding of why we sometimes fail to adapt to change, and disorders characterized by such failures (e.g., anxiety disorders, addiction). Field of research: 5202 - Biological Psychology The things we learn each day sometimes contradict our existing beliefs about the world, causing old and new information to coexist and compete for control over our behaviour. However, very little is known about how this competition is resolved in the brain. For example, one might learn that huntsman spiders are not dangerous. Yet we do not know why seeing a huntsman spider can still cause panic and avoidance. This project will determine how contradictory information is stored and retrieved in the brain, generating new knowledge about why we sometimes fail to adapt to change, as well as disorders characterized by such failures, including anxiety disorders and addiction. Outcomes of the project will be disseminated to scientists, practitioners, and policymakers, such as those in healthcare, education, and criminology. Social, health and economic benefits are expected by informing and enhancing strategies for managing behaviour.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

A Decadal Roadmap for Water Security and Resource Management. This project aims to enhance water resource management by crafting a reservoir flow forecasting framework spanning seasonal to decadal scales. Utilizing state-of-the-art climate models, hydrological simulations, and statistical methods, this initiative meets an industry-identified need. The expected deliverable - a platform for water security projections - is rooted in this framework and tailored for practical and commercial use. It aids utilities like WaterNSW in decision-making for water supply planning, drought preparedness, and resilience enhancement. By bridging academic innovation with industrial needs, the project stands to benefit Australia’s ability to mitigate the challenges posed by extreme events and climate change. Field of research: 4005 - Civil Engineering This research addresses an urgent issue recognized by Australian water experts: ensuring water security for all Australians under a changing climate. Climate projections indicate that Australia will face a drier future in the coming decades, exacerbated by frequent extreme events. These shifts endanger urban water supplies, agriculture, and ecosystems. To counter this, the project develops a platform that integrates cutting-edge climate models, hydrological simulations, and statistical techniques. This platform delivers water security projections from seasonal to decadal scales, fulfilling critical industry needs. Immediate beneficiaries include water utilities such as WaterNSW, as the platform strengthens their resilience to climatic extremes and informs their strategic planning. This initiative aligns with Australia's National Water Initiative, tackling essential concerns such as water scarcity, drought resilience, and climate adaptability across multiple sectors. Upon commercialization, this platform will provide a scalable solution for jurisdictions with similar challenges, widening its impact. To maximize the reach of this research, close collaboration with industry stakeholders is intended for effective knowledge transfer and practical implementation. Through scholarly publications, public talks, and policy briefs, a wider understanding and adoption of the research are sought, enhancing Australia's capability for climate-resilient water management.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Establishing practical quantum information in higher dimensions. This project aims to develop a quantum hardware platform with exceptional computational power, at a fraction of the cost incurred by industry- and government-based competitors overseas. Using technology pioneered by earlier curiosity-driven research, this Project will establish practical methods to perform error-corrected quantum computations using atomic-scale devices in silicon, and will create an Australia-led, globally-connected legacy in high-dimensional quantum computing. The project will provide a uniquely affordable platform to generate new intellectual property in support of the Australian quantum industry and to help train the emerging quantum workforce, in alignment with the National Quantum Strategy. Field of research: 5108 - Quantum Physics Quantum computers are expected to drive innovation and increase productivity in healthcare and medicine, natural resources and financial services, and to be of strategic importance for defence and national security. However, the poor performance of current quantum hardware is inadequate to provide such benefits. This Project will develop a revolutionary quantum computer platform, where information is robustly and densely encoded within large atoms inside a silicon chip. This platform will surpass the performance of all existing quantum hardware, while being manufactured at a fraction of their cost. In Australia alone, the quantum industry is forecast to create 19,000 new jobs and generate $5.9B in revenue by 2045. The quantum hardware built within this Project, hosted in a free and open academic environment, will help training and growing the workforce needed for our emerging quantum industry. Valuable ideas and intellectual property will be created and protected to give Australian industries a technological edge over their competitors. This research will create an Australia-led legacy in quantum computing, and a strategic network of collaborations with like-minded countries. The use of silicon as the basic platform will facilitate adoption by the trillion-dollar semiconductor industry, and the prospect of growing a domestic industry at the forefront of this field. The meaning and impact of the outcomes will be broadcast to the public through extensive outreach activities.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Caves and their stalagmites: linking climate to groundwater recharge. In a warming world, aquifers provide a resilient water source, and understanding the climate - recharge relationship is urgently needed. For the first time, caves and cave stalagmites will be used to define the role of climate phenomena such as La Niña and the Indian Ocean Dipole in the replenishment of groundwater. The project will generate new knowledge that is only possible by combining the analysis of cave stalagmites, underground hydrological monitoring, and climate and hydrological modelling to identify when this replenishment occurred in the past, present, and future. This should provide significant benefits to the sustainable management of this resource which has a multi-billion value for the Australian economy. Field of research: 3709 - Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Groundwater is worth AU$6.8 billion in gross domestic product equivalent to the Australian economy and AU$34 billion as a value of production. Despite this economic importance, we do not know how the replenishment of groundwater (technically known as groundwater recharge) relates to climate phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña. This is increasingly important as we adapt to climate change and associated climate extremes, such as the recent rare occurrence of three consecutive wet La Niña years and this year's forecast dry and intense El Niño. This knowledge gap will be filled by using caves, uniquely situated between the land surface and the groundwater, as observatories of groundwater recharge in the past, present and future. Project outcomes include identifying the climate conditions most likely to lead to the rainfall recharge of groundwater, and how this recharge of groundwater will change with future climate change. This new knowledge can be used to help identify where groundwater can be sustainably used for water supply and industrial use in the future and to mitigate the impacts of longer and more intense droughts that are predicted with climate change. Using presentations at industry-focused conferences, workshops, and a white paper, project outcomes will be communicated to state and federal water policymakers and to industries that use groundwater as a resource, such as commercial forestry, the wine industry, tourism, and water supply.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Meta-expertise: A new class of human expert for responsible AI oversight. Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence can efficiently protect the Australian passport from identity fraud and enhance identity management across society. To meet the major global challenge of responsible AI, effective oversight by human operators is essential, but there is no scientific basis for defining this role. This project aims to develop understanding of how perception and cognition combine in identification decisions, to define a new workforce of ‘meta-experts’ that oversee face recognition technology. Outcomes include new individual difference tests, targeted training and model face identification evidence reports. Benefits include enhanced trust in government and security of Australian identities across sectors of society. Field of research: 5204 - Cognitive and Computational Psychology The task of deciding whether two images are of the same unfamiliar face is a critical component of modern identity management systems. This check safeguards against identity fraud which cost Australians over $3.1 billion dollars in 2019 and is often linked to national and international organised crime. Since 2011, the Australian Passport Office has used Facial Recognition Technology to protect the Australian Passport from identity fraud, and use of this technology to authenticate identity of citizens has expanded across all sectors of society with the introduction of the government-provided Identity Matching Service. Robust human oversight of this technology is essential to ensure accurate and equitable outcomes for government and citizens, but the role of this new workforce has not been defined. This project will develop a new knowledge framework that will support selection and training of this workforce, define the inherent requirements for the job, and the form of face identification evidence they should produce. Expected benefits include improved accuracy, human oversight, and explanation of face identity decisions – supporting equitable and secure identity management across sectors of society. This project will also contribute more generally to defining the role of Australian workers in an era of Artificial Intelligence.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Zero emission nitrogen removal process. Eliminating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions marks a transformative shift in the wastewater industry. This project aims to capitalise on our recent breakthrough to develop a wastewater process that operates with near-zero GHG emissions. This project assembles a multidisciplinary team to conduct extensive laboratory investigations on this process, glean advanced insights crucial for process optimisation, and also implement comprehensive testing in real field conditions. Two major Australian water utilities partners—jointly servicing about one-fourth of the country's population—will commit to adopting this process, to ensure consistent delivery of tangible, long-term economic, environmental, and social benefits to Australian communities. Field of research: 4004 - Chemical Engineering In Australia, water utilities have set ambitious targets to achieve zero-emission wastewater services by 2030. However, these objectives face hurdles due to substantial greenhouse gas emissions, particularly nitrous oxide, generated in the traditional nitrogen removal process. Leveraging recent discoveries in iron-mediated microbial reactions, this project aims to pioneer a novel technology that drastically minimises nitrous oxide emissions to near zero. Additionally, it maximises bioenergy recovery by converting wastewater organics into biogas, while reducing chemical and energy consumption by up to 80%. Conducting real-field process investigations, this project anticipates demonstrating the effectiveness and scalability of this technology and seeks to establish a benchmark for global adoption of the technology in wastewater treatment facilities. Collaborating closely with two major Australian water utilities—jointly serving about a quarter of the country's population—this project promises substantial benefits for Australian communities and aligns with their pursuit of economically and environmentally sustainable wastewater services.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Redesigning Clothing Waste Using a Circular Design Framework. The project aims to develop an innovative circular design framework to map pathways to convert waste clothing into new products. It will do this through the application of a novel design process using redesign activities to create commercial solutions. Collaborating with our partners AnglicareSA and JamFactory, it demonstrates how resource conservation can be increased by empirically testing original concepts for clothing, textiles and objects that advance social innovation. It transforms our understanding of textile waste and how it can be creatively reused in small-scale production runs with outcomes that optimize the social enterprise model to benefit local community and business. Field of research: 3303 - Design The Project provides a circular design framework to creatively reuse clothing waste for new value-added products. Circular economy principles underpin the National Waste Policy Action Plan, which sets out a series of targets to address waste in Australia. In 2021 clothing was added to the Minister’s Product Stewardship Priority List. The project supports Australia’s increased resource conservation by robustly testing repair, refurbishment and repurposing strategies that create novel commercial solutions. Through expanding and detailing the creative scope for designing with discarded materials, it supports a social enterprise to build a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration across its clothing sorting and product manufacturing teams. The outcome will also benefit clothing brands, designer-makers, and charitable organisations, as each involve processes to keep materials in use that can be enhanced through a circular design framework.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Programmable active surface for next generation optical switch engines. The global power consumption of data centers is set to exceed 3000TWh by 2030 if electrical switches are continued to be used. Electrical switches must be replaced by optical switches to reduce this exuberant power consumption. But, the dominant optical switch technology, pioneered by Finisar Australia, has power, speed, and mass production issues. This project aims to develop novel optical switch technology using lead titanate (PT) films on silicon to address the issues. It is expected to generate new knowledge in optical properties and microfabrication of PT-based films on silicon. The outcome will benefit Finisar to improve its product, capitalize on the huge market opportunities in data centers, and innovate new display technologies. Field of research: 4017 - Mechanical Engineering The project aims to develop the next generation optical switch technology using programmable pixelated solid-state active surface. The new technology will address the power, speed, and mass production issues associated with the existing Liquid Crystal based technology, pioneered by Finisar Australia, that dominated the world market. As the technology will be developed in Australia, it has a potential to lead to a dedicated semiconductor foundry in Australia for large scale production in line with the Australian Government National Manufacturing Priority scheme. As such, the project will benefit Finisar Australia, the partner organization, commercially by enhancing its product quality, reducing cost, giving competitive advantage over its major competitors, capitalizing on new emerging market opportunities in data centers and driving innovation in display technologies. From market point of view, data centres will open up US$17Billion market opportunity in the next 5 years. The market for display technologies is projected to grow to US$2Billion by 2030. The commercial benefit to Finisar will have a direct flow-on effect to Australian economy.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

ARC Research Hub for Photovoltaic Solar Panel Recycling and Sustainability (PVRS). The Hub aims to transform Australia’s photovoltaic (PV) solar panel recycling industry by developing advanced technologies of green PV recycling and materials reuse, redesigning PV panels for recycling and reliability and advancing policy informing by leveraging interdisciplinary expertise and collaborations across the value chain. It directly addresses Australia's National Net-Zero Plan and Waste Action Plan. Outcomes expected are industry translations of scalable PV recycling solutions and new panel designs, new supply chains, and Australia's R&D critical mass and workforce training, with environmental and economic benefits of PV waste reduction, new jobs and markets of onshore recycling chain and sustainable energy security in Australia. Field of research: 4011 - Environmental Engineering The Hub directly addresses two Australia's National Plans – the Net-Zero 2050 Plan and the Waste Action 2030 Plan. i) In the Net-Zero 2050 Plan, Australia targets greenhouse gas emission reduction to Net Zero by 2050. This Hub directly addresses this Plan by promoting a green photovoltaic (PV) supply chain. Particularly, the redesigned PV panel with high reliability and long service life will enable reliable PV service in their massive installations in Australia; and the redesigned PV panel with ready recycling structure will allow a low-cost PV recycling at its end-of-life and thus reduce its recycling pressure and promote a further increase in PV installations, towards true Net-Zero 2050 target, even after the strict e-waste policy is applied in many regions in Australia and overseas in the near future. ii) In the Waste Action 2030 Plan, Australia targets to reduce total waste generated by 10% per person by 2030, recover 80% of all waste by 2030, significantly increase the use of recycled content, and provide data to support better decisions. This Hub directly addresses this Plan, by developing advanced PV recycling technologies, enabling their industry translations and demonstrating their transformation in Australia, PV recycling policy informing, building up an Australia critical R&D mass and training Australia's skilled workforce. This will allow highly efficient and high throughput green recycling and significantly reduce PV waste towards zero landfills in Australia.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Co-designing Aboriginal Digital Museology Frameworks in the Southern Gulfs. Museums around the world are increasingly scrutinised for how they represent First Nations peoples. Digital practices offer new ways to record and exhibit cultural knowledges, but they can also exacerbate existing biases. Through collaboration with Kaurna, Narungga and Nukunu peoples from Australia’s Southern Gulf Country, this project aims to explore how a co-designed approach to digital museology can provide meaningful ways to record and share First Nations stories, addressing significant gaps in museum practices. Its outcomes will include new interactive tools for museums and communities to collect and interpret cultural data. Its benefits include structural solutions for museums and increased First Nations institutional agency. Field of research: 4302 - Heritage, Archive and Museum Studies Through collaboration with Aboriginal peoples from Australia’s Southern Gulf Country, this project will design new culturally appropriate digital tools for Aboriginal communities to work with museums to record and present their histories. Museums worldwide have an obligation to tell First Nations stories. However, outdated museum systems and methods of recording data have limited institutional awareness of, and access to, First Nations knowledges and experiences. In collaboration with museums in Adelaide and Aboriginal partner organisations in the Spencer and St Vincent Gulfs of South Australia, researchers will develop digital tools that address these shortcomings and identify novel ways for community partners to record lived experiences. The project will produce new technologies and protocols for museums across Australia and internationally to work with First Nations communities to record and analyse digital data. It will provide tools for interacting with data that enable its use across divergent digital platforms, including desktop, mobile and on-site systems. It will lead to enhanced digital methods of preserving, collecting and exhibiting Aboriginal heritages that will be deployed in public exhibitions in both state institutions and community organisations.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

A unified approach to the design of economic institutions. The project produces fundamental theoretical research on classical design problems in microeconomic theory, including the design of disclosure rules, regulatory policies, and decision processes. It uncovers a common underlying mathematical structure for these classic problems, previously studied by disparate methods. Building on the CI's contributions to information design, the project develops powerful tools – based on recent advances in optimal transport – to unify and generalize existing classic theorems, and to produce a wealth of new fundamental results. By taking these tools to various applications such as digital platforms, consumer privacy, and social networks, the project informs the design of fair and effective economic policies. Field of research: 3803 - Economic Theory By substantially expanding our theoretical understanding of economic design problems, this project will directly speak to some of the key challenges that Australia faces today: in particular, to the problems of media regulation, market competition, and the design of public organisations. The project aims to incorporate realistic constraints into the design problems that Australian policymakers face, and will allow for the careful analysis of tradeoffs that are particularly relevant to Australia -- such as the need to balance national security interests with consumer rights in the regulation of media markets. In doing so, the project will produce specific guidelines and recommendations that can be taken on board and applied by policymakers, executives, and legislators in contexts that are specifically Australian.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Two to Tango: The synergistic power of RNA-protein interactions in plants. RNA is an excellent vehicle for administering animal therapies, including vaccines. RNA is also a crucial regulator of plant genetics and epigenetics. However, our understanding of how regulatory RNA aids motion-constrained plants in adapting to their environment remains limited. The function of RNA often relies on its interactions with protein partners, which remain largely unknown in plants. The main goal of this project is to survey plant RNA binding proteins and RNA structures, to understand the principles of their synergistic interactions, and their changes in closely related species over time. Such insights will inform the development of synthetic regulatory RNAs for market-friendly and pest- and extreme climate-resilient plants. Field of research: 3102 - Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Australia's food security faces potential threats in a changing world. RNA is successfully being used to prevent and treat human and animal diseases and is also vital for plants. Plants cannot escape predators or harsh environmental conditions and often respond to their environment by regulating their genes, often using RNAs. This research project will study RNA, how it folds and the proteins that bind it in related plant species. By studying how RNA and their binding proteins have changed over time and how these changes affect gene expression, we can learn more about how plants use RNA to control their genes to adapt to their ever-changing environment. This knowledge can be used to develop new types of RNA that can be temporarily applied to crops to improve their growth without changing their genes. These RNAs could help enhance plants to produce higher crop yields and acquire resistance to pests, extreme weather conditions, and other environmental challenges without resorting to genetic modification, helping to ensure Australia's food self-sufficiency. These technological developments have the potential to boost Australian farmers' competitiveness in the global market and help to support Australia's growing RNA industry.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Water security in an era of global change, big data and computational power. This fellowship aims to develop an entirely new, holistic modelling method to advance understanding, prediction and management capacity of water resources systems, such as watersheds, rivers, and reservoirs. Equipped with advanced analytics, the proposed method will synthesize emerging big data sources on a range of hydroclimatic variables to uncover important insights into complex dynamics and changing properties of water-human systems. The results are expected to catalyse a paradigm shift in modelling theories that will not only be much more scientifically advanced, but also critically inform decision-making to protect lives and assets locally and globally in the face of climate change and increasing flood and drought disasters. Field of research: 3707 - Hydrology By seamlessly integrating hydrological sciences with cutting-edge technology and diverse data sources, my fellowship aims to address the knowledge gaps and prediction challenges surrounding water systems – to help transform the management of Australia's precious water resources. The project is centred on the development of a novel method for modelling water systems, by creating an advanced mathematical representation that harnesses the capabilities of artificial intelligence, big data sources and state-of-the-art computing resources. The potential benefits of this innovation are profound, as it significantly enhances our capacity to predict and manage water-related disasters such as floods and drought. These events annually incur costs of tens of billions of dollars for Australia, underscoring their paramount significance for farmers, communities, and water-dependent industries. This advanced capability can have two distinct benefits: (1) substantial economic savings afforded by better predictions and (2) enhanced environmental protection by more informed resource management. The project, which aspires to set a new global standard for modelling and managing water resources, will share its findings widely through end-user and scientific workshops and publications. It will also foster new collaborations, promoting far-reaching impact for the knowledge and tools developed and contributing to securing Australia's water future in the face of challenges posed by climate change.

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2024 · 2024-01

Taking Quantum Chemistry from Vacuum to the Real World. This project aims to produce highly accurate methods to predict the effect of environment on chemical reactions using multi-scale approaches and machine learning. If successful, this outcome will be very significant as it will propel chemical modelling to become a key driver for the design and discovery of new chemicals, medicines and materials. These methods will find very broad use in the chemical and biosciences by allowing researchers to reliably include realistic reaction conditions such as solvents and enzymes in their models. It will have economic benefits for Australia's multi-billion-dollar chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries as time-consuming experimentation are replaced by computer screening in the future. Field of research: 3407 - Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Quantum chemistry has the potential to transform how research and development is currently performed in the pharmaceutical and chemicals industries. Already certain tasks such as measurement of the heat produced by a chemical reaction that used to cost industry USD$100,000 are now replaced by quantum chemical calculations almost exclusively. Australia is strongly positioned to be part of this transformation with the most powerful supercomputer facilities in the Southern Hemisphere, but quantum chemistry has moved to a phase where its progress requires methods that can accurately describe reactions other than those in the vacuum. This project will help develop such methods that will increase the predictive power of quantum chemical simulations of real-world reactions. This breakthrough will have enormous potential economic and environmental benefits for Australia's multi-billion-dollar chemicals and pharmaceutical industries as time-consuming experimentation and costly consumables such as toxic solvents and reagents can be significantly reduced through computer screening in the future.