The University of Wollongong will continue to lead Australia in electromaterials science after receiving $25 million in Commonwealth funding.
The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science – located at the University of Wollongong (UoW) – will be led by Professor Gordon Wallace.
It aims to advance cutting-edge electromaterials science through the discovery of new materials, and their assembly into more advanced electrochemical devices.
Such technologies will address some of today's most challenging global problems in clean energy, synthetic biosystems and soft robotics.
UoW is the only New South Wales institution to be successful in the 2014 funding round of the ARC Centre of Excellence program.
The University of New South Wales will be a partner organisation in three new Centres of Excellence based at Melbourne's Monash University:
- The $26-million ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, to be headed up by leading polymer chemist Professor Thomas Davis of the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences;
- $20 million ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function, led by Professor Gary Egan; and
- The $28-million ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging, steered by Professor James Whisstock.
ARC Centres of Excellence encourage collaboration between university researchers at the administering and collaborating organisations, as well as researchers and end-users at partner organisations, both across Australia and around the world.
Meanwhile, UoW will also receive $5-million for a new research hub – the ARC Research Hub for Australian Steel Manufacturing – funded through the ARC's Industrial Transformation Research program.
And $7-million will be spent setting up three new ARC Training Centres at NSW universities.
The ARC Training Centre for Food and Beverage Supply Chain Optimisation will be based at the University of Newcastle ARC; ARC Training Centre for the Australian Food Processing Industry in the 21st Century will be located at the University of Sydney; and Charles Sturt University will be home to the ARC Training Centre for Functional Grains.
ARC Training Centres foster close partnerships between university-based researchers and other research end-users to provide innovative Higher Degree by Research (HDR), as well as postdoctoral training for end-user focused research industries vital to Australia's future.