Industry Laureate Fellowships helping address industry-identified
challenges and opportunities
The Australian Research Council (ARC) today announced $27 million in research funding for 8 Industry Laureate Fellowships over 5 years, bringing industry together with Australia's outstanding researchers to translate exciting new ideas into real outcomes for Australia.
ARC Industry Laureate Fellowships are an integral part of the ARC's Industry Fellowship Program, which aims to promote national and international collaboration partnerships between key stakeholders in research and innovation.
ARC Acting Chief Executive Officer, Dr Richard Johnson, said that the new Industry Laureate Fellowships will help support strategic engagement between universities and industry, and will contribute to addressing industry-identified challenges and opportunities.
"These laureate researchers will help attract and retain researchers of international reputation within Australia, to strengthen Australia's research capacity and competitiveness, and also to mentor early career researchers to develop industry translation and commercialisation skills," Dr Johnson said.
"I am looking forward to seeing the research outcomes and milestones achieved by these researchers, and how these will be translated for the benefit of the Australian community - from ecosystem conservation to safekeeping Indigenous cultural heritage."
The following Industry Laureate Fellows will receive funding and begin in 2024:
- Professor Benjamin Boyd - Monash University ($3 million): to establish a new framework for selection of components for food structuring that will enable enhanced digestion of food and delivery of nutrients, enabling Australia to help solve the global issue of better food and nutrition by creating foods that efficiently deliver nutrients through improved gut interactions.
- Professor Bruno David - Monash University ($3.6 million): to transform how coastal archaeological sites are researched, and to train a new generation of Aboriginal Sea Rangers to map, monitor and manage coastal landscapes threatened by erosion.
- Scientia Professor John Gooding - The University of New South Wales ($3.7 million): to partner with Nutromics Pty Ltd to better understand how electrochemical sensors operate and in turn bring this newfound technology to the market of wearable sensors for personal wellbeing.
- Professor Mark Halsey - Flinders University ($3.5 million): to build on pilot work in Australia's largest jurisdiction to help fundamentally transform the way prisoners are rehabilitated. Adoption of this research will occur in partnership with Corrective Services NSW to create evidence-based action plans that best support prisoners to turn away from crime after their prison term.
- Professor David Keith - The University of New South Wales ($2.5 million): to help sustain healthy ecosystems, with benefits to the health, social, economic and cultural wellbeing of all Australians.
- Professor Robyn Sloggett - The University of Melbourne ($3.6 million): to address the loss of Indigenous cultural heritage through research outcomes that will reduce the risk of further losses of remotely located Indigenous collections.
- Professor Guoxiu Wang - University of Technology Sydney ($3.6 million): to solve the current issue of lithium-ion batteries self-combusting by introducing novel non-flammable and fireproof materials and gels inside batteries to make them safer.
- Professor Lianzhou Wang - The University of Queensland ($3.5 million): to pioneer a new approach to the processing of high-quality Lithium-ion battery material and expand access to high-performing batteries that have increased lifespans and reduced environmental impact for electric vehicles (EVs) and grid electricity storage in Australian households.
