SEI members secure ARC Discovery Project grants

Professor Kurt Iveson; Associate Professor Maria de Lourdes Melo Zurita       

Wiring Australian Cities: Making Space for Telecommunications. This project aims to critically examine the ways that land, labour, materials, finance and territorial authority are assembled and contested in the process of wiring and rewiring Australian cities for telecommunications connectivity. The project will generate new knowledge on how the wiring of Australian cities is achieved, and the geographical and social impacts of the wiring process. Outputs including innovative visualisation tools will generate original insights into the making and materiality of infrastructure space. This will provide significant benefits, including new approaches to identifying and addressing on-going challenges of making space for telecommunications in crowded urban environments.

Professor Deanna D'Alessandro; Associate Professor Girish Lakhwani; Dr Carol Hua 

Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks for Optical Switches. This project aims to develop advanced Metal-Organic Framework materials that make ultrafast and energy-efficient processing of light signals possible, without the need for electronic processing. New knowledge will be gained on the interplay between nonlinear optical properties and the chiral structures of the materials, including new switching mechanisms based on host-guest and electrochemical stimuli. The expected outcomes of this project include the development of novel thin film devices for optical switching. This should provide significant benefits because such devices have widespread technological relevance across the communications, medical and defence sectors where faster and more energy-efficient information processing is critical.

Professor Julia Kindt                     

Herodotus, Thucydides, and the 'Discovery' of Truth in Ancient Greece. Ancient history has much to tell us about the polarization in the political cultures of many Western societies today. More specifically, it speaks to larger questions emerging from contested notions of truth and truthfulness at the heart of this polarization. This project aims to explore how truth first emerged as a problem among some thinkers in Classical Greece. It expects to generate the first study of the social, political, and intellectual conditions that led to the emergence of truth as a social value. Outcomes include a better understanding of what is at stake in our joint commitment to the real and factual, and what would be lost if we give up on it now - with broad benefits for our grasp of political cultures past and present.

Professor Clare McArthur; Professor Peter Banks; Dr Malcolm Possell; Dr Catherine Price       

Understanding odour information to influence mammalian herbivore decisions. This project aims to quantify how plant odour information, its quality and utility, affect herbivore foraging decisions. It also aims to apply this knowledge to test artificial odours designed to alter food choice and so improve plant growth and survival. Expected project outcomes are an understanding of when, why and how herbivores respond to olfactory information as well as the quantitative characterisation of odour information as it degrades to “noise”. Translating this knowledge should provide significant environmental and economic benefits by generating a novel, non-lethal strategy that manipulates odour information to nudge animals away from valued plants, thereby protecting threatened plant species, revegetation programs and crops.

Associate Professor Thomas Roberts; Dr Claudia Keitel; Associate Professor Tina Bell; Dr Ali Khoddami; Dr Rebecca Cross; Associate Professor Floris van Ogtrop        

Food Quality of Australian Indigenous Grains: Impacts of Plant Environment. Little is documented about the viability of grains from Australian native grasses for commercial food applications and how this is influenced by plant growth environment. This project aims to fill this gap in our understanding by co-designing and disseminating knowledge with Gomeroi researchers. The project expects to (1) develop recommendations for native grain production based on insights into the environmental effects on grain quality for four native grasses, (2) train research students, and (3) enhance Indigenous partnership on Gomeroi Country in northern NSW. Benefits resulting from the project are the promotion of best-practice management of native grasslands and support for the development of an Indigenous-led native grains industry.

Professor Michele Ford; Associate Professor Aim Sinpeng; Associate Professor Petr Matous; Associate Professor Jie Yin; Dr Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn; Assistant Professor Benjamin Velasco; Assistant Professor Estu Putri Wilujeng      

Generative AI attacks on workers’ freedom of association in Southeast Asia. This project aims to assess the role of Generative Artificial Intelligence in digital attacks on freedom of association and attempts to resist them in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the risks to human rights posed by AI using an innovative methodology built on qualitative approaches and cutting-edge digital techniques. Expected outcomes include a typology of digital attacks on freedom of association and responses to them and a prototype large language model capable of generating counter narratives. This should provide significant benefits to Australia, supporting its commitment to promoting Responsible AI Technologies and furthering its geo-strategic interests in Southeast Asia.

Dr Gareth Bryant; Dr Sophie Webber; Dr Benjamin Spies-Butcher; Dr Claire Parfitt; Dr Svenja Keele     

The Climate Economy: Emerging Strategies for Australia. This project aims to improve Australia’s economic response to climate change by evaluating the strategies that are being developed to meet decarbonisation and resilience goals. It will generate new knowledge about the ‘climate economy’ using an innovative method to understand its ‘hybrid’ actors, policies and institutions. Expected outcomes of this project include a new conceptual toolkit and evidence-based strategies for researchers and practitioners to engage and improve Australia’s emerging climate economy. This should provide significant benefits by building capacity among policy makers, investors, and citizens to pursue effective, democratic, and just climate responses in an era of political-economic transformation.

Associate Professor Jonathan Pickering; Dr Madeline Taylor; Professor David Schlosberg; Associate Professor Amanda Tattersall                                          

Just transmission: advancing coherence in Australia’s electricity policy. This project aims to develop strategies for a just and coherent approach to constructing new electricity transmission infrastructure in Australia. Through fieldwork and comparative legal and political analysis of synergies and tensions between policy objectives, the project expects to generate new knowledge on best practice for how transmission projects can engage and benefit regional communities. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of how existing practices align with principles of energy justice, and a stronger evidence base for transmission reform. The project should yield economic benefits by identifying pathways to strengthen public support for accelerated investment in Australia’s renewable energy future.