The ARC grant rounds have drawn to a close, with the exception of the Linkage Projects scheme.

Flinders University submitted a total of 86 applications across all schemes in the most recent rounds – 3 Australian Laureate Fellowship applications, 5 Future Fellowship applications, 10 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award applications, 52 Discovery Project applications, 12 Linkage Project applications, 3 Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) applications and 1 application to the Special Research Initiative for PFAS (Per- And Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances) Remediation.

All Colleges submitted applications to the Discovery Project scheme, with the College of Science and Engineering having the highest number of applications. Applications spanned a diverse range of topics including chemistry, environment, biology, engineering, mathematics, basic science and psychology. The indicative time frame for rejoinders for the DP19 round is 7 to 21 June 2018 . The Research Development and Support Division is pleased to continue to support applicants by reviewing and value-adding to applications that are submitted in time for review. We look forward to assisting with the forthcoming rejoinder process.

The ARC Linkage Projects scheme remains open. Applications to that scheme may be submitted at any time up until 20 December 2018. With the continuous application and assessment process, you can expect to know the outcome of your application within a four to six month time frame. Researchers are encouraged to submit Linkage Project applications to the Research Development and Support Division at any time for compliance review.

If you have any queries regarding the Linkage Project scheme or any other ARC scheme, please don’t hesitate to contact Senior Research Grants Officer Maya Roberts on 8201 7698 or email arc@flinders.edu.au.

A 3-year, $1 million Dementia Australia Research Foundation-Yulgilbar Innovation Grant is on offer in Round 1 of the 2018 Dementia Grants Program. The Grant is jointly funded by the Dementia Australia Research Foundation and The Yulgilbar Foundation.

The purpose of this Grant is to fund generously a single, high-quality, innovative and possibly paradigm-changing research project that could transform the landscape of dementia research. The external closing date is Thursday 31 May 2018, 5.00pm AEST.The Flinders internal closing date is Thursday 13 May 2018. Application assistance and advice is available from Gareth Rees, Research Development and Support.

The Grant is designed to attract proposals from new groups, which may be multi-disciplinary, bringing expertise from outside (as well as within) the field of dementia, and with the potential to offer new approaches and collaborations nationally and internationally.

To find out more, please visit the Dementia Australia grants page.

The Brain Foundation are calling for nominations to the 2018 Elizabeth Penfold Simpson Prize. The $20,000 prize will be awarded to the author of the best piece of original research in any of the neurosciences published in the last two years on the advice of three or more judges nominated by the Brain Foundation.

The external closing date for applications is Monday 30 July, 2018. The Flinders internal closing date is Monday 16 July 2018. For application assistance, contact Marina Delpin, Research Development and Support.

The research must have been conducted wholly or substantially in South Australia. It must have been published, or accepted for publication in a reference journal or accepted as a thesis within the last two years for a higher degree in clinical neuroscience offered by the University of Adelaide, Flinders University or University of South Australia.

Where the work represents the collaborative effort of more than one person, the Prize may be awarded to more than one person and in such case the Prize will be shared equally between those persons.

The criteria are:

• The quality of the research work;
• The originality of the work; and
• The importance of the work as a contribution to neurology or neurosurgery.

The successful applicant(s) will be expected to be available for media interviews in South Australia.

Please attach a PDF of the published work with a covering email to Marina Delpin, Research Development and Support.

The covering email should contain the following:

• Chief Investigator and, if applicable Co-Investigators
• Title, First and Last Names
• Contacts, Telephone and Mobile
• Specialisation
• Main Institutional Affiliation

Find out more about how postgraduate and HDR students can be supported to study overseas with world leading universities. These opportunities will enhance your ability to have real world impact and give you access to different perspectives, leading research and a global community of like-minded people. 

The Prestigious Scholarships Information Session will be held on Thursday, 10 May 2018, from 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM at The Studio. To register, please click here.

Come along and hear from some previous recipients about:

• Fulbright Scholarships
• Rhodes Scholarships
• Cambridge Scholarships
• Sir John Monash Scholarships
  

Plus you will have the chance to ask any questions about the scholarships over a delicious morning tea. 

For more information about these exciting opportunities visit the Office of Graduate Research: Prestigious Scholarships website.

Space safety is of growing concern for all space-faring nations. Both the increasing number of artificial space objects and the near-Earth objects (NEO) population pose a serious threat to our infrastructure in orbit and on ground. The ESA conference will bring together the NEO and Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) communities in ESA NEO and Debris Detection Conference - Exploiting Synergies.

The conference will be held at ESA/ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany, 22 - 24 January 2019 and the organisers have now opened the call for abstracts, which will close on 1 October 2018.

The conference will highlight all classical and new disciplines of NEO and Debris Detection Research, including:

• Observation strategies - technology improvements of radar, passive optical, and laser systems
• Instrumentation component developments (CCDs, CMOS, ...)
• New telescope and radar projects (e.g. fly-eye telescope)
• Space-based observation concepts
• Space surveillance system architectures and applications
• Detection systems for fireball and other events
• Orbit prediction and determination
• On-orbit and re-entry risk assessments
• Data processing concepts
• Data exchange mechanisms and standardisation
  

Details on the conference venue, scope, registration, accommodation and abstract & paper submission can be found on the conference website.

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is inviting proposals for the latest round of Grand Challenges Explorations. Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) fosters early-stage discovery research to expand the pipeline of ideas for solving our greatest global health and development challenges. Launched in 2008 with an initial $100 million commitment from the foundation, Grand Challenges Explorations grants have already been awarded to more than 1300 researchers in more than 65 countries.

Applicants can be at any experience level; in any discipline; and from any organisation, including colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organisations, and for-profit companies. Initial grants will be US $100,000 each, and projects showing promise will have the opportunity to receive additional funding of up to US $1 million.

The Gates Foundation are accepting applications on the following three topics until May 2, 2018 (external closing date):

• Innovations in Immunization Data Management, Use, and Improved Process Efficiency
• Affordable, Accessible, and Appealing: The Next Generation of Nutrition (also see the blog)
• Tools and Technologies for Broad-Scale Disease Surveillance of Crop Plants in Low-Income Countries

Proposals are solicited twice a year for an expanding set of global health and development challenges. Applications are only two pages, and no preliminary data is required. Applicants can be at any experience level; in any discipline; and from any type of organisation, including colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organisations and for-profit companies.

For application advice, please contact Mary Lyons, Research Development and Grants.

Grand Challenges grant opportunities (Please note that all dates listed below are external closing dates)

• Grand Challenges India: New Approaches to Characterize the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance. Application deadline is May 25, 2018.
• Grand Challenges Explorations – Brazil: New Approaches to Characterize the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance. Application deadline is May 28, 2018.
• Grand Challenges Africa: New Approaches to Characterize the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance. Application deadline is May 16, 2018.
• Grand Challenges South Africa: New Approaches to Characterize the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance. Application deadline is May 16, 2018.
• Grand Challenges: Campylobacter spp. Transmission Dynamics in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Application deadline is May 2, 2018.
• Grand Challenges Explorations – Brazil: Data Science Approaches to Improve Maternal and Child Health in Brazil. Application deadline is May 2, 2018.
• Misk Grand Challenges: Activating Global Citizenship: Building the Next Generation of Global Citizens for the Global Goals. Application deadline is May 2, 2018.
• Misk Grand Challenges: Reinventing Teaching and School Leadership: Preparing the Youth with the 21st Century Skills Needed for a Knowledge Economy. Application deadline is May 2, 2018.

Additional global funder grant opportunities

• The African Academy of Sciences (AAS), the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are partnering under the auspices of the Coalition of African Research & Innovation (CARI) to establish a post-doctoral training fellowship program, the African Postdoctoral Training Initiative (APTI). Training will be at the intramural laboratories of NIH. Application deadline is May 11, 2018.
• The Templeton World Charity Foundation announces Round 1 of its new Global Innovations for Character Development initiative. Application deadline is June 15, 2018.

Blog series on innovation: Trevor Mundel, the Gates Foundation's President of Global Health, recently published three new blogs in his series on innovation: one on metabolic markers for gestational age assessment, one on surveying nutrient levels in breastmilk, and one on new technology to assess intestinal health in babies.

The Australian Academy of Science and the French Embassy invite PhD students to apply to participate in the third Australian–French Entrepreneurship Challenge.

The Australian–French Entrepreneurship Challenge is designed to bring together creative minded PhD candidates to brainstorm innovative ideas right through from concept to creation – all in the space of 24 hours.

The third edition of the challenge is organised by Macquarie University, with the support of the Australian Academy of Science, the French Embassy in Australia, and the Australian and French business communities.

Candidates should be research active in one of the following fields:

• the natural sciences, including earth, chemical or biological sciences
• technology
• engineering
• medicine
• the humanities
• social sciences.

Further information and the application form can be found here. The deadline for applications had been extended to 9am (AEST) Friday 18 May 2018. For advice and application assistance, contact Dani Milos, Office of Graduate Research.

Do you have an idea, project or research that delivers significant benefits to women and young workers in South Australian workplaces? Now is your chance to make a difference. Apply for a share in $45,000 to improve women's health and safety at work.

Applications are now open and will close Friday 22 June 2018. The Flinders internal date is 8 June 2018. Contact Mary Lyons, Research Development and Support, for application advice and assistance.

Successful projects will:

• address a work health and safety issue faced by women or young workers, and/or
• significantly improve health and safety for women and young workers through research or further education.

For further information on the application process and the application template, visit the Safe Work SA website.

Submissions are now open for an exciting new open innovation challenge program. CSIRO Futures and ON have teamed up to pilot a new program and they’re seeking submissions from research teams that will tackle a big challenge for a leading ASX50 organisation.

Submissions are now being accepted and will close at 12 midnight AEST 22 April 2018. Visit the online submissions portal to register and submit your idea - https://ideation.awardsplatform.com/. Application assistance and advice is available from Research Development and Support - contact Mary Lyons.

What’s the challenge?

Work tasks for employees in supply chain distribution centre environments are generally characterised as repetitive lifting and sorting. Workers spend most of their workday locating and moving boxes onto pallets (called picking), with each employee lifting between 8-20 tonnes per shift. While many precautions are taken, these tasks do result in injuries, and the client would like to reduce injuries to zero. The challenge for this Australian supply chain organisation is to find innovative solutions to help reduce the incidence of workplace injuries sustained by manually moving items and boxes in a distribution centre environment. See more here: Challenge Statement

What ideas are we looking for?

We are welcoming all ideas: from commercially available solutions, late-stage ideas that require further development and testing, as well as new research ideas that require validation. We are seeking any technologically-oriented solutions that will help employees avoid injury including, but not limited to, fatigue measurement or predictive analytics.

Not your field? No problem!

The power of the open innovation model is finding solutions that nobody has thought of before, and often the best ideas and teams often come from very different sectors and backgrounds.

What does it involve?

The challenge will be split into three steps:

Stage 1- Idea Submissions: teams and individuals are invited to submit ideas that could solve our Industry Partner’s Challenge

Stage 2- Ideation Sandpit: selected teams and/or individuals will be invited to participate in a 2-day workshop alongside our industry partner

Stage 3- Part-time accelerator: teams with the most promising ideas will be offered the chance to participate part-time accelerator program to further develop their concept(s). This accelerator will be run by ON and mentored by industry representatives, and will require a time commitment of six face-to-face sessions over an eight week period.

If you are experiencing any difficulty accessing the online submissions form, or have further questions, you can also contact Jerad.Ford@csiro.au.

The Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS) Student Travel Grants round for 2017-18 is now open. The grants offer financial support to postgraduate students studying at Australian institutions to travel to national or international conferences or workshops relevant to both the student’s research program in taxonomy or systematics and the ABRS Priority Areas for Research Grants.

Amounts of either $750 (GST exclusive) for domestic travel or $1,500 (GST exclusive) for international travel are available. Applications close at 2 PM (AEST) Monday 23 April 2018.

For more information regarding the Student Travel Grants or for an application form, please see the ABRS website. Please contact the Australian Biological Resources Study on abrs.grants@environment.gov.au with any questions.

The NSW Shark Management Strategy (SMS) Annual Competitive Grants program has opened and will close on 26 April 2018. The Flinders internal closing date is 12 April 2018. For information and application assistance, contact Mary Lyons, Research Development and Support.

A total of $200,000 is available to support projects which align with the key objective of the NSW SMS to ‘increase protection for bathers from shark interactions while minimising harm to sharks or other animals’. For this third round of funding, the focus is on socio-economics of shark-human interactions (eg changes in human behaviour and perceptions following implementation of a particular approach).

Please find the details of this program, including how to apply, on their website. 

Do you know any early-career researchers who have peer-reviewed results, a discovery, or an invention that has received little or no media attention?

Please nominate them for Fresh Science, the national competition that helps early-career researchers find, and then share, their stories of discovery. Scientists get a day of media training and the chance to share their work with the media, general public and school students.

Fresh Science is looking for: early-career researchers (from honours students to no more than five years post-PhD), a peer-reviewed discovery that has had little or no media coverage, and some ability to present ideas in everyday English. For advice and support, contact Dr Marina Delpin, Research Development and Support.

Past Flinders scientists who have been selected include Laura Gell and Katherine Morrell in 2017, Dr Mona Awadalla and Stephanie Shepheard in 2016, and  Dr Justin Chalker in 2015.

How to nominate

Check out the selection criteria, read ahead and see what questions will be asked, then go online and nominate via the short, easy, online application form.

Nominations close midnight on Tuesday 24 April.

The training and events will be held in June and July– dates will be posted on the Fresh Science website.

What’s involved in Fresh Science?

In each state, the top ten applicants will be selected. If selected, the following will be provided:

A day of media training where you will: hear from working journalists about what makes science news for them; find the story in your research with guidance from two experienced science communicators; and practice being interviewed in front of camera and on radio.

A short profile about your work written in a media-friendly way, published online and via social media.

The chance to step on stage and present your science to a friendly audience down at the pub. In some states, you will also present to school students or a “shark-tank” style panel of leaders from industry and government.

One story per state will be written up as a press release and issued to the media.

Fresh Science is an initiative of Science in Public.

Fresh Science South Australia is supported by the South Australian Museum, Flinders University, the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide.

Now in its 21^st year, Fresh Science has trained over 500 scientists to share their science, and generated hundreds of news stories via TV, print, radio and online. You can read past Fresh Scientists’ stories online at freshscience.org.au.

For U.S. study and research opportunities for all academic levels, look no further than the Fulbright Program. Applications are now open for all Australian Applicants to the program and will close on 15 July 2018.

The newest program: Fulbright Future Scholarships offer funding for full tuition/visiting researcher fees at any U.S. institution, as well as travel and living costs. Future Scholarships are open to postgraduate students, PhD researchers, academics and professionals who propose innovative research projects with potential for significant impact. Please contact the Scholarships Office for further information on how to apply as a Flinders student. Mary Lyons, Research Development and Support can provide advice and assistance for staff who are looking to apply.

For more information on the new Fulbright Future Scholarships and over 30 other awards available, please visit their website.

The Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarships allow postgraduate students undertaking their Australian PhD to conduct research in the U.S. for 8-10 months or supports enrolment in a graduate degree program (e.g. a Master’s) for 10 months up to two-years.

Fulbright Postdoctoral scholarships allow individuals to undertake postdoctoral research in the U.S. for 3 – 10 months, who have completed their PhD in the past 5 years.

Fulbright Scholar Awards are for academics (at Associate Professor or Professorial level) and mid-career professionals (with an undergraduate qualification and minimum 10 years work experience) to undertake research and/or training in the United States for 3-4 months in any discipline.

The Fulbright Distinguished Chair award is for an exceptional individual at professorial level to carry out research in the United States for up to 6 months. The Fulbright Distinguished Chair for US Applicants to carry out research at an Australian sponsoring institution is also currently open and will close on 12 August 2018.

The National Foundation for Medical Research and Innovation (NFMRI)’s funding seeks to support the translation of biomedical research projects that have strong potential in addressing unmet community needs. Funding provided by NFMRI is very different from other foundations and traditional funding sources, which is why they ask that applicants read more about the Foundation prior to submitting a proposal.

Around the beginning of each calendar year, NFMRI opens its general grant round, which is open nationally and seeks to support innovative biomedical research projects covering all diseases and conditions. From time to time, via our partnerships we are able to offer targeted funding rounds based around our partner’s mission and objectives.

Those interested in applying for NFMRI funding should read more about their strategy and portfolios prior to making a submission. They also encourage potential applicants to attend one of their information sessions across the country, if possible. Their success stories and current grants also provide a good indication as to the types of projects they normally support.

Those interested should consider subscribing to the NFMRI newsletter as this is where all announcements are made.

The following funding opportunities are available with the NFMRI in 2018:

2018 Annual Grant Round - OPEN

Focus: all diseases/conditions, limited to applications that fall within portfolios 2 & 3, open nationally
More information about this grant round can be found here.
Closes: 6pm AEST on Thursday, 29 March 2018 (please note that the RDS internal closing date of 15 March 2018)
EOI form can be found here. Completed EOI forms should be submitted via this link.

Dr John Dixon Hughes Medal for Medical Research Innovation - OPEN

Nominations for a researcher under the age of 45 for outstanding contribution towards the development and advancement of a biomedical innovation related to the nature, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and incidence of disease and other health problems that have a significant impact on the health of humans. The medal will be awarded with a prize of $50,000 in the form of a grant.

Closes: 6pm AEST on Monday, 30 April 2018 (please note that the RDS internal closing date of 16 April 2018) For assistance in preparing the nomination, please contact Dr Marina Delpin.
Information about the award and the nomination process can be found here.
Read more about the previous award recipients here.
Completed nominations should be submitted via this link.

Emerging Infectious Diseases Grant Round - OPEN

Together with the NSW Department of Primary Industries, NFMRI is looking to support one or more projects, over up to three years, investigating infectious diseases that are transmitted between animals and humans.

Focus: emerging zoonotic infectious diseases, applications that fall within portfolios 1, 2 & 3, open nationally but research must be of benefit to NSW.
More information about this grant round can be found here.
Closes: 6pm AEST on Thursday, 29 March 2018 (please note that the RDS internal closing date of 15 March 2018).
Infectious diseases EOI form can be found here. Completed EOI forms should be submitted via this link

Alzheimer’s Disease Grant Round - OPEN

As part of our partnership with The Mason Foundation (managed by Equity Trustees), NFMRI will be seeking EOIs for projects investigating potential treatments and/or cure for Alzheimer’s Disease.

Focus: Alzheimer’s Disease, applications that fall within portfolios 1, 2 & 3, open nationally.
More information about this grant round can be found here.
Opens: Wednesday, 4 April 2018.
Closes: 6pm AEST on Thursday, 31 May 2018 (please note that the RDS internal closing date of 17 May 2018).
Forms available here.