Australian Research Council grants go to projects ranging from gas prospecting to shark deterrence
Studies to improve electronic deterrence of sharks, measure the extent of LGBT conversion therapy in Australia and improve oil and gas prospecting are among 77 projects to receive $35m in Australian Research Council grants.
The education minister, Dan Tehan, announced the recipients of the grants on Thursday, including a $444,500 grant to the University of New South Wales, in partnership with Santos, to improve resource prospecting in frontier basins onshore and offshore.
That study proposes to “build a new workflow for improving resource exploration evaluation by Australian companies”, to train students and develop new software to assist the oil and gas industry.
Since last year all applications have had to include a national interest statement, which was introduced following the 2018 controversy over alleged political interference in ARC grants. The then-education minister Simon Birmingham blocked 11 projects, including those on topics such as “beauty and ugliness as persuasive tools in changing China’s gender norms” and “post orientalist arts in the Strait of Gibraltar”.
In November 2018, Tehan restored funding to projects on masculinity and social change in Australia, rioting and the literary archive, and the art of cultural diplomacy, but pushed ahead with the national interest test.
The UNSW/Santos project’s statement says “gas is an important part of Australia’s energy security” and exploration for new resources is “of vital importance” to meet both domestic and export demand.
The project will aim to “optimise and automate the exploration workflow, reducing costs for the industry and improving the mapping of Australia’s oil and gas resources”, it said.
The project boasts it will help companies make “better decisions based on existing data” and “reduce the environmental footprint of exploration” by minimising the need to acquire new data.
The May 2020 round includes grants to a broad range of disciplines – from environmental science to education and social work.
La Trobe University’s Timothy Jones won $290,565 for a study in partnership with Victoria’s department of premier and cabinet to investigate “the history, scale and nature of LGBT conversion therapy in Australia”.
The study will include “a national survey, life history interviews and focus groups with spiritual and mental health care providers” to better inform policy debates about LGBT conversion.
Macquarie University’s Nathan Hart received $399,155 for a project to “investigate the effects of pulsed electric fields on shark physiology and behaviour, [and] develop novel electronic pulse waveforms that maximise the deterrent effect on a range of shark species”.
The University of South Australia’s Jeffery Connor received $202,000 “to develop a land sector greenhouse gas abatement, food production and environmental economics model for NSW”.
“We expect to identify innovation in carbon payment policy and brokerage business models to achieve agricultural GHG abatement, while simultaneously improving sustainability,” it said.
Tehan said projects funded would “cover a range of topics, from improving surf safety by investigating shark repellents to finding new ways to helping Australia’s farmers better manage their farms”.
“Our investment in research supports the development of longterm strategic research collaborations between university researchers and businesses, industry and community organisations to find solutions to problems and improve the lives of Australians,” he said.
Tehan also cited grants including: $620,765 to research how a lack of access to digital technology impacts on low-income families’ access to education, parenting, social participation and employment (Queensland University of Technology)
$232,347 to research the workload of teachers and principals (Queensland University of Technology)
$751,260 to discover new ways to kill parasites that live in their host animal (University of Melbourne).