Congratulations to all Academy Fellows who were part of successful applications for the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Discovery Project funding. More than $220 million in funding was announced by ARC Chief Executive Officer Judi Zielke on Monday 30 October, for 421 research projects in round 1. Several Academy Fellows are among the grant recipients, including:
| Bernard Balleine | Matthew Hornsey | Lorraine Mazerolle |
| Catharine Coleborne | Jenny Lewis | Michael Platow |
| Nisvan Erkal | Ian McAllister | Carla Treloar |
| Renee Fry McKibbin | Gavan McNally | Yves Zenou |
| Lata Gangadharan |
All details for ARC’s Discovery Projects 2024 can be found at the ARC Discovery project page here.
Fellow Ian McAllister received funding for a project to generate new knowledge about how democracy operates, exploring what affects government popularity and how governments respond to these factors.
In a project to fill gaps in our knowledge of brain processes and decision-making, Fellow Bernard Balleine’s team will explore the role of dopamine release in striatal cellular activity to assess the causal role of this interaction in choice and decision-making.
Fellow Catherine Coleborne’s received funding to explore post-institutional care in the history of mental health before the era of deinstitutionalisation. It will examine patterns of discharge from psychiatric institutions from 1900 to 1960 and the aftercare services associated with them.
Fellows Nivan Erkal and Lata Gangadharan will work on organisational diversity and addressing labour market gaps and inequality by exploring how a new approach for leadership selection—turning from an opt-in to an opt-out mechanism—might increase women’s participation in leadership.
Fellow Reneé Fry-McKibbin is collaborating on a project that will ultimately guide Australian and international policymakers in the face of extreme events such as the Global Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. The project addresses technical challenges in incorporating tail events—low probability extreme events—into economics and finance models.
Why do people discriminate against certain accents? Fellow Matthew Hornsey received funding to extend our knowledge by developing a Global Database for Accented English, an archive of piloted speech samples and will explore the conditions under which accent bias is most pronounced and what causes accent bias in schools and workplaces.
Fellow Jenny Lewis will work on a project to identify the conceptions of value that underpin national research impact policies and to examine the consequences for research activities, outputs, and outcomes. By studying four countries with different national policy approaches to research impact, it is expected that significant new knowledge about the role of research in society will be produced.
Fellow Gavan McNally received funds for a project that explores how we safely make risky decisions. It will combine theoretical experimental psychology with state-of-the-art technology for mapping and manipulating brain function to better understand how choices are made and how they can be shaped. It will lay the basis for better understanding impulsive behaviours.
Fellow Lorraine Mazerolle is part of a project to improve policing responses to domestic and family violence by examining how capacity, police capability and conducive police culture operate individually and interact collectively to inform practice and survivor outcomes.
Fellow Michael Platow is part of a team examining competing explanations behind prejudice and extremist violence and developing a new framework including the novel concept of thwarted identity, psychopathology, ideology and prejudice. The aim is for new policy solutions and novel targets for interventions to reduce prejudice and extremist violence.
Fellow Carla Treloar is part of a project advancing knowledge on the relationship between trauma, alcohol and other drug-related problems. It aims to improve responses, policy and trauma-informed care, as well as increase the capacity of Australia’s health workforce to respond to trauma and alcohol and other drug-related problems.
Fellow Yves Zenou received funding to develop two new methodologies for measuring how people interact with each other and how our peers affect our outcomes. It will examine the effect of peers and networks on environmental issues, such as recycling behaviours to produce better policy design and motivation towards environment-friendly behaviours.
For a more complete description of each project and all team members click here.