Sydney university research gets green light
The University of Sydney has secured more Discovery Project grants than any other university in New South Wales, with the second highest total in Australia.
Along with UTS, USYD will share in $40 million in federal government funding for 125 separate research projects, Federal Member for Sydney Tanya Plibersek said in a statement last week.
USYD received $33 million for 111 projects, while the University of Technology Sydney received $5 million for 14 projects under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects and Linkage Projects schemes, for funding commencing in 2011.
Director of Research and Innovation at UTS, Jeffrey Francis, said the federal investment would do much to advance the university’s research efforts.
“This funding will allow these exciting projects to go ahead here at UTS, as well as helping bring exciting new researchers to UTS,” Mr Francis said.
“The Linkage projects in particular enable us to work with a variety of industry and academic partners, here in NSW and across Australia.”
For UTS, ARC funding provided in 2009 represented roughly 17.3 per cent of the University’s total research income. This year, only 14 projects out of a total 122 proposals, were awarded grants under the latest funding round.
Sydney Uni spokesman, Andrew Potter, said the federal funding was critical to ensuring the university’s research work could continue.
“These are all competitive grants and the University is pleased to have been awarded so many,” he said.
“The latest funding grants from the Australian Research Council will enable our researchers to continue their cutting-edge research in a wide range of disciplines.”
Research projects across both institutions have a diverse focus including saving the Tasmanian devil from extinction, to the development of self-cleaning paint; explaining triggers for childhood obesity, to improving productivity and the way hospital staff work together; and tackling climate change, to improving patient safety in hospitals.
By Tamara Smallhorn
