Wollongong's grant success spreads across campus

Nov 19, 2004

Researchers across a variety of disciplines at the University of Wollongong have scored a remarkable success with the announcement of almost $10 million in funding (an increase of $1.3 million over last year) for the hotly-contested Australian Research Council Discovery Grants.

The Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Brendan Nelson, has announced an allocation of $381 million over five years to Australian universities for 1,387 new research projects. UOW has been awarded a total of $9,780,606 compared to $8,481,384 last year. This represents a success rate of 32.7% for UOW against a national average of 30.8%

The Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Margaret Sheil, said while the increased funding was really good news, the standout achievement for Wollongong was how the successful grants were spread across so many research disciplines this year.

"It's not just our traditional research strengths in science, engineering and IT who have had success but researchers in arts, law, health sciences and commerce who have won grant money," she said. The Faculty of Commerce (with a success rate of 71.4 per cent) was ranked fourth nationally in terms of total Discovery Grants.

Examples of projects funded included studies of healthy eating campaigns, ecofriendly tourism markets, big picture bioethics, new lithium batteries and a new oceans law and policy library.

ARC Linkage grants encourage the formation of long-term strategic alliances between university researchers and their collaborating partner organisations, including from within industry. UOW received a total of $1,090,664 in Linkage grants matched by $1,173,904 in funding by industry partners.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gerard Sutton, said the announcement of UOW's success strengthened the University's claim of being among the top group of research-intensive universities in the country.

Meanwhile, UOW researchers have also been awarded four project grants worth $1,273,875 over three years through the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Professor Sheil said UOW's success rate in these grants was 25 per cent compared to the national average of 22 per cent. This year's allocation is an increase of $693,000 over last year.

NHMRC projects at UOW will include three obesity studies eg. a weight management program for overweight and obese children, and a method for improving treatment for prostate cancer.

The full list of UOW grants can be viewed at: UOW Research Grants

For further information contact the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gerard Sutton on 4221 3909 or the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Margaret Sheil on 4221 3915.

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128