Two research projects in QUT's Creative Industries Faculty have been awarded close to $1 million in ARC funding and are among 20 Discovery Projects and Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards to QUT researchers valued at $8.2 million in the first 2016 round.
Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham has been awarded $535,000 to explore new models of online and screen content creation with the aim of contributing to innovation in Australian screen production and distribution. Professor Cunningham is director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation based at QUT.
Professor Brian McNair will lead a team investigating how journalism is changing as a cultural form and the implication for political, cultural and economic life. They will look at how change is affecting the forms of journalism available to Australians, the ways in which and by whom journalism is produced and the uses to which it is put by citizens and practitioners.
Other QUT recipients of Discovery Projects and Discovery Early Career Researcher funding are:
Science and Engineering
Professor Tommy Chan - transform traditional civil structures into smart structures that can accurately identify current and future structural deterioration conditions and automatically notify the infrastructure management for timely maintenance - $360,000.
Professor Gerard Ledwich - develop a new framework to support the successful deployment of resilient 'prosumer-based' energy systems such as solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and battery and other energy storage - $435,000.
Professor Gerard Ledwich - develop an electrical network costing framework that appropriately rewards customers who act to reduce network stress - $390,000.
Professor Mahen Mahendran - develop novel cold-formed, light-gauge steel frame wall systems with superior fire resistance - $310,000.
Professor Greg Marston - identify policy synergies between environmental, economic and social policies to move Australia toward a low-carbon economy and model of sustainable prosperity - $210,000.
Professor Kostya Ostrikov - develop novel plasma-enabled processes for low-cost, energy-efficient and scalable growth of high-quality graphene films for applications in touch screen, solar cell and other devices - $430,000.
Professor Jan Recker - develop and validate a new theory for how information systems can be designed to assist organisations in becoming innovative - $380,000.
Professor Mahinda Vilathgamuwa - develop an improved battery management system to smooth the intermittent contribution of renewable energy sources to the grid - $290,000.
Professor You-Gan Wang - develop novel statistical tools for more accurate prediction by taking account of model complexity and uncertainties associated with the fitting procedure - $305,500.
Dr Christopher Drovandi - develop computationally efficient and scalable Bayesian algorithms to estimate the parameters of complex models and ensure inferences drawn from the models can be trusted - $382,274.
Dr Cara Mortimer - develop methods to improve plant natural products yields and diversify the products manufactured from a wide array of plants - $352,000.
Dr Mary Tate - understand customer quality perceptions of digital services and factors such as customers' own skill levels that help people optimise their experiences - $298,000.
Dr Jingsan Xu - develop novel photocatalysts for reducing carbon dioxide to useful products using solar energy - $375,000.
Dr Zuduo Zheng - address the challenge of efficiently operating mixed traffic flow of traditional, connected and automated vehicles - $336,000.
Education
Associate Professor Linda Graham - Which children develop severely disruptive school behaviour - $384,000.
Associate Professor Karen Dooley - investigate the extent and impact of private academic tutoring in Australia - $242,575.
Dr Alberto Bellocchi - address student disaffection with junior school science and facilitating positive social bonds in science classrooms to improve student engagement - $369,000.
Dr Sonia White - investigate how implementing cognitively demanding mathematics tasks in the early years may change number development and mathematics achievement - $365,071.
Law
Dr Nicolas Suzor - create a set of principles to help governments, firms and civil society organisations address harmful online content in more sophisticated ways - $350,000.
Media contact:
Niki Widdowson, QUT Media, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au
