UQ research boosted by $7.7 million in ARC grants

The University of Queensland commitment to leading research has been recognised again with the Federal Government awarding 19 Australian Research Council grants.

The Australian Research Council has announced $81.8 million in grants to fund 200 research projects through the Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRAs).

UQ research investigating an immune cell signalling pathway, the tectonic stress field of Australia and crime prevention in public spaces are among the 19 projects that have been awarded more than $7.7 million in DECRA funding.

DECRAs are highly competitive and support Australia’s next generation of researchers working in key priority areas to grow Australia’s research and innovation capacity.

This is the latest funding boost for UQ and follows $102 million in grants for three ARC Centres of Excellence, $6.59 million for eight ARC Future Fellowships, and $9.8 million for three Laureate Fellowships. 

UQ’s DECRAs are:

• $426,770 to Dr Nathan Evans to enhance our understanding of everyday thinking through experimental cognitive science.
• $426,476 to Dr Jos Kistemaker to develop a preconcentrator technology for in-field detection of explosive vapours that have low concentrations in the air.
• $425,118 to Dr Jean-Paul Hobbs to investigate conserving the evolutionary processes that generate coral reef biodiversity.
• $424,856 to Dr Fabio Cortesi to examine why fishes have more colour vision channels than any other vertebrate.
• $423,711 to Dr Maria Monteleone to advance our understanding of macrophage defence mechanisms in response to invading bacterial pathogens.
• $420,960 to Dr Renee Zahnow to investigate factors that enhance active guardianship and facilitate crime prevention in public spaces.
• $419,000 to Dr Timothy Duignan to identify new electrolyte solutions with suitable properties for use in improved electrical energy storage technologies.
• $418,735 to Dr Matthews Adams for investigating the value of knowing more about ecosystem feedbacks.
• $415,693 to Dr April Hastwell to characterise novel signalling peptides in legume crop development.
• $409,364 to Dr Loic Yengo to detect and quantify patterns in human mate choice that determine the distribution of genes in the population and across generations.
• $405,509 to Dr Christopher Hay to investigate the origins of live performance subsidy in Australia between 1949 and 1975.
• $403,866 to Dr Mojtaba Rajabi to investigate the present-day Australian tectonic stress state.
• $403,398 to Dr Sen Wang for explainable multi-source multivariate time-series analysis.
• $400,000 to Dr Luke Kelly to explore the relationship between foot morphology and foot function.
• $390,000 to Dr Roger Marek to understand the precise neural circuits that mediate the formation of emotional memories.
• $384,616 to Dr Alain Wuethrich for developing a new nanotechnology to characterise extracellular vesicles and other bioparticles with single particle precision.
• $379,729 to Dr Megan Evans to evaluate the effectiveness of impact investing for biodiversity conservation.
• $373,668 to Dr Zoe Staines to produce policy-relevant knowledge about the effects of the Australian Government's changing remote employment policies in four remote Indigenous communities.
• $354,016 to Dr Anna Puskas to further knowledge in multiple areas of pure mathematics by resolving questions in an area that lies at the intersection of different mathematical disciplines.

MEDIA: UQ Communications, communications@uq.edu.au, 07 3365 1120.