News

Faculty’s big green win on Linkage Grants
May 29, 2008

Two teams led by prominent Faculty of Science researchers studying cleaner water and greener steel have helped UNSW to win the highest level of funding for any Australian university for Linkage Grants - which fund collaborative projects between university researchers and partner organisations - from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

The ARC has awarded UNSW almost $11.5 million to support 22 projects, well ahead of any other university. This represents some 18 per cent of the $63 million worth of Linkage Grants awarded nationwide. Four of the grants were worth more than $1 million each. The grants to UNSW bring with them contributions from industry partners of an additional $21 million.

Researchers led by Professor Rick Cavicchioli from the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, in the Faculty of Science, have been awarded $1.1 million over four years for work on improving the sustainability of Australia's water resources through diagnosing and treating foulants on water recycling membrane filters. The partner organisation is Aeris Technologies Ltd.

Professor Cavicchioli leads the UNSW Extremophiles Laboratory, which studies life forms adapted to extreme environments. A commercial arm of that work has developed technologies for generating unique extremozymes, called UnikZymes, which have enhanced properties useful in a broad range of industries.

A team led by Professor Aibing Yu from the School of Materials Science and Engineering in the Faculty of Science will receive $1.06 million for multi-scale modelling related to blast furnace iron-making, a key operation in the steel industry. A major aim of the project is to reduce the environmental impact of the operation.

Professor Yu was recently awarded a prestigious five-year Federation Fellowship. Two other Faculty researchers, Professor Brett Neilan and Professor Michelle Simmons, also won Federation Fellowships in 2008: only 14 of these awards were made nationally and the UNSW Faculty of Science alone won more than any other university as a whole. Monash University and the Australian National University, for example, won only two fellowships each, and the remainder went singly to other universities.

"These are great results for the UNSW Faculty of Science", says Associate Professor Roger Read, Associate Dean, Research and International. "It confirms not only our academic strength but our increasing success in attracting research funds and our ability to work with industry, business, government and community to use the power of science to solve real-world problems.

"The Faculty's 380-plus academic staff have collectively doubled their annual income in research funding in the past few years. Most of this is from competitive grants schemes but we also attract more than a quarter of our research income from industry and other non-Government sources. This is reflected in our sharp rise in publications in recent years as well, from just under 500 DEST weighted publications in 2003 to over 700 in 2006."

In other UNSW 2008 Linkage Grants, a large award of $1.6 million over six years has gone to a team led by Professor Martin Green from the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, for a project targeting a new generation of low cost silicon solar cells that will significantly reduce the costs of generating electricity from sunlight. The collaborating organisation is CSG Solar Pty Ltd.

A grant of close to $1.3m over five years goes to a team including four academics from the Australian School of Business, plus international collaborators. Led by Professor Michael Sherris from Actuarial Studies, the researchers will work on a project on managing risk with insurance and superannuation. The partner organisations for this research are the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia and the World Bank.