Swinburne researchers awarded $3.6 million in national competitive funding

Swinburne has successfully secured $3.6 million in funding from the 2018 Australian Research Council (ARC), following Minister for Education Dan Tehan’s announcement of more than $380 million in funding for university research projects on Tuesday.  

Swinburne Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Development) Professor Aleksandar Subic says the successful grant outcomes align with Swinburne’s strategic goals.

“This funding will allow Swinburne to increase capacity for sustained excellence and world-leading research in science and technology,” says Professor Subic.

“I wish to congratulate all those who were successful this year. These outcomes are the result of great skill, dedication and a lot of hard work.”

ARC Discovery Projects Award success

Six Swinburne-led Discovery Projects were awarded more than $2.4 million in ARC Discovery Projects funding.   

• Professor Saulius Juodkazis, Dr Xiaoming Wen, and Professor David Moss ($450,000) for a project to develop a new standard in solar energy conversion efficiency;
• Professor Baohua Jia and Dr Keng-Te Lin ($340,000) for a project to develop an environmentally-friendly solution for efficient thermal energy manipulation;  
• Professor Jinjun Chen ($420,000) for a project to develop innovative solutions for effective and efficient protection of personal privacy on cloud servers;
• Associate Professor Zhenwei Cao, Professor Zhihong Man, Dr Xian-Ming Zhang, and Professor Qing-Long Han ($390,000) for a project to develop new repetitive control systems for networked environments that aim to reduce the cost while enhancing the performance of automation systems;
• Professor Peter Drummond and Professor Margaret Reid ($375,000) for a project to develop computational tools to study exponentially complex many-body systems and using them to model novel quantum technologies;
• Professor Peter Hannaford, Professor Andrei Sidorov and Dr Jia Wang ($483,401) for a project to create a new exotic form of quantum matter which could provide significant benefits for the storage and transfer of quantum information.

In addition, eight Swinburne researchers - Dr Jiong Jin, Dr Irene Moser, Professor Jun Han, Associate Professor Joseph Ciorciari, Associate Professor Alan Duffy, Professor Richard Sadus, Professor Billy Todd and Dr Nicole Ronald – were part of successful grants led by other universities.

ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award success

Dr Sayanthan Ramakrishnan received $408,000 of ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award funding which will enable further development of his research into revolutionising concrete pumping. 

ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities Project Grant success

More than $700,000 for a Swinburne-led Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities Project was awarded to Professor Peter Newton, Professor Mark Burry, Associate Professor Hussein Dia, and Professor Marcus White. Their project aims to establish the first phase of a nationally networked research collaboration to support smarter urban planning, design and management.

A full list of all successful grant applicants is available from the ARC website.

Swinburne’s Highly Cited Researchers in 2018

In addition, four Swinburne researchers have earned the honour of being named a 2018 Highly Cited Researcher. They are:

• Professor Qing-Long Han
• Professor Vo Anh
• Distinguished Professor Neville Owen
• Associate Professor Ivo Labbe

The annual list from Clarivate Analytics identifies the world’s most influential scientists and social scientists who have demonstrated significant influence through publication of multiple highly cited papers.

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