Funded Projects

The network operates with two schemes of funding - The Working Group Projects(WGPs) and the Early Career Researcher Projects (ECRs).

Working Group Projects aim at funding projects up to a maximum of 3 years intent on bringing scientists from around the world to engage in multidisciplinary projects to address the themes of the network - impact on biodiversity of global climate change, geo-historical processes, and human arrival. To date the network has funded thirteen WGPs to the value of close to half a million dollars over three calls for funding.

Project proposals are rated according to the following criteria:

Does the proposed activity help define the important big questions on Australia's biodiversity and its management?
Does it develop novel approaches, techniques and readily accessible data sources to better equip the research community to answer such questions?
Will it promote a culture of synthesis and collaboration, bringing together researchers and facilities across disciplines to form new synergies?
Will the immediate benefits of the new collaborations be realised in the form of novel large-scale collaborative grant applications that are competitive nationally and internationally (applications that would not have occurred or would have occurred in less ambitious form without the network)?
Does it provide opportunities for ECRs to gain broader experience of research teams and facilities nationally and internationally and to engage in research initiatives in a more strategic way?
Will it produce research outputs that are synthetic works appearing in leading journals and with a high potential to influence research directions in our respective disciplines?
Will the activity interface with resource management agencies to capture their knowledge needs and to communicate the value to management of the understanding generated from the proposed activity?

Original objectives of the ARC grant application

Working Group Projects funded by the Network to meet objectives

1. Impact of Homo sapiens on the Australian continent	Recent human impact on Australian ecosystems [OZPACS] (Gell)
	Plant exploitation and domestication east of the Wallace Line: Movement, manipulation and management of plant biodiversity (Denham)
	Habitat reconstruction and restoration: securing biodiversity assets in the face of climate change (Paton)
	Human-land interactions of Australia's earliest inhabitants: adaptation and impact (Bowler)
2. Fire history since separation from Gondwanan supercontinent	Habitat reconstruction and restoration: securing biodiversity assets in the face of climate change (Paton)
3. Identification of 'hotspots' for key taxonomic groups	Evolution of short-range endemic taxa associated with troglobitic and groundwater ecosystems (Austin) and a bit of Role of Melanesia in the diversification of the Australian terrestrial biota (Donnellan)
4. Dynamics of extinction	-
5. Diversification of extant lineage of biota	Role of Melanesia in the diversification of the Australian terrestrial biota (Donnellan) and Evolution of short-range endemic taxa associated with troglobitic and groundwater ecosystems (Austin)
6. Impact of climate change on distribution of species	Coping with change: Resilience of marine social-ecological systems (Hughes)
	Multidisciplinary approaches to key Australian biodiversity challenges of 2010 and beyond (Faith)
	Land-Ocean correlation of long Quaternary records from the southern hemisphere on orbital and sub-orbital timescales (Kershaw)
	An ecological history of Australia's temperate marine environments: Accounting for the shifting baseline syndrome (Connell)
	Integrating historical, ecological, molecular and geographic data to reconcile Australian Biotic Radiations - Using eucalypts and song birds as a case study (Bowman)
	Evolutionary history of the Australian biota (Byrne)

Below is the financial summary of projects mentioned above illustrating the proportion of investment relating to the National Research Priorities.

Environmentally Sustainable Australia	$	%
Water - a critical resource	118,646	11
Overcoming soil loss, salinity and acidity	5,795	0.6
Sustainable use of Australia's biodiversity	474,126	46
Developing deep earth resources	3,940	0.4
Protecting Australia from invasive diseases and pests	6,400	0.6
Responding to climate change and variability	259,366	25
Safeguarding Australia
Understanding our region and the world	119,103	11
Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries
Frontier technologies	7,880	0.8
Smart information use	46,200	4.4
Total	$1,041,456*	99.8%

*Excludes funding apportioned toward the ECR scheme ($295,490).