ARC funding for ACES projects

Chief Investigators involved in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) have welcomed more than $4.8 million in funding for projects through the Australian Research Council (ARC) 2018 Discovery Projects and Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities schemes.

ACES Chief Investigators (CI’s)have welcomed more than $4.8 million in funding for projects through the ARC 2018 Discovery Projects and Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) schemes.

Announced on Friday 10 November by the Minister for Education and Training, Senator the Hon. Simon Birmingham, the Discovery Projects scheme provides funding to support excellent basic and applied research projects to be undertaken by individual researchers or research teams.

Among the successful Discovery Projects due to commence in 2018, were two involving ACES CI’s.

The projects, awarded more than $1million in funding include:

• A project involving Swinburne University node ACES CI Professor Simon Moulton and his team Professor Robert Kapsa and Dr Anita Quigley, titled Ultra-low Fouling Active Surfaces.
•  A project involving Deakin University node ACES Assistant Director Professor Maria Forsyth and her team of Professor Margaret Ackland, Professor Herman Terryn, Dr Anthony Somers and Dr Laura Machuca, titled Multifunctional and environmentally friendly corrosion inhibitor systems.

A further $3.8 million was awarded for infrastructure projects through LIEF scheme for funding commencing in 2018.

The six infrastructure projects with ACES CI’s include:

• A project involving ACES CI Associate Professor Attila Mozer aimed at extending the Shared Picosecond Laser Facility to include picosecond-pulse technology and to incorporate new consortium members.
• A project involving ACES Assistant Director Professor Maria Forsyth aimed at addressing a critical surface characterisation gap in Australian research by the implementation of a glow-discharge optical emission spectrometer.
• A project involving ACES CI Professor Jun Chen to establish a multi-functional system for investigating surface, interface, and thermal properties of functional materials.
• A project involving ACES Director Professor Gordon Wallace and ACES team Professor Peter Innis, Dr Stephen Beirne, Associate Professor Jeremy Crook, Professor Xungai Wang and Professor Peter Choong  which aims to develop bioprinting systems that will provide new insights into fundamental biological processes.
• A project involving ACES CI Professor Jeremy Crook and ACES Professor Robert Kapsa, that aims to establish a high-throughput, automated patch clamp facility to enable research at the forefront of cell phenotyping and drug discovery.
• A project involving ACES CI Professor Brett Paull that aims to establish an advanced, multi-purpose mass spectrometry platform for high-throughput and targeted biomolecular analysis, including proteomics and metabolomics.

Congratulations also to Rouhollah (Ali) Jalili who completed his PhD then was an early career researcher with ACES at UOW before taking up a Vice Chancellor’s fellowship at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). He was awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2018 Round 1 (DECRA) this round of funding for a project titled – Nature-inspired electrochemical conversion of nitrogen to ammonia.

ACES Executive Director Professor Gordon Wallace said the funding was a reflection of the quality and relevance of our research.

“All of these funded projects reflect the strength of the ACES core program and the ability of our researchers to build on this to create new opportunities for Australia,” Professor Wallace said.

“Huge congratulations to all.”