The University of Newcastle (UON) has been awarded over $5.7 million by the Australian Research Council (ARC), to support new research projects in 2017.

 

UON received $2.2 million across six Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards, $2.6 million across eight Discovery Projects, and also secured a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship worth $930,000. Awarded to Associate Professor Sarah Wright, the ARC Future Fellowship aims to understand the relationship between weather, people and place.

 

Associate Professor Wright’s project will incorporate research into weather cultures, including their expression through songs, songlines and stories, in order to better understand how people relate to anomalous weather and how it affects their response.

“I am thrilled to have received such a significant fellowship from the Australian Research Council, which will allow me to work with Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures affected by Cyclone Oswald in 2013.

 

“I will be working collaboratively with communities, looking at where the winds gathered in Timor Leste, where the cyclone formed in Yolngu Sea-Country in Arnhem Land and where the rivers flooded in Gumbaynggirr Country to enhance adaptive capacity to environmental change through Indigenous-non-Indigenous two ways learning,” she said.

Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation), Professor Kevin Hall, said the funding announcement reflected the innovative, high impact research taking place at UON.

 

“Receiving a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship is a fantastic outcome for Associate Professor Wright and the University. Our depth and breadth of talent continues to deliver excellent outcomes in these important funding rounds.

 

“I am very excited to watch the journey of all our successful recipients as their work progresses, and look forward to seeing the impact of their valuable research as they take the next steps to solve some of our most pressing global issues,” he said.