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Friday, 9 April 2010

The University of Western Australia has been allocated 10 new Fellowships under the Australian Government's $27.2 million Super Science Fellowships scheme, aimed at attracting the world's best researchers.

The University will receive $2,784,000 over two years, the largest funding allocation given to any Australian university or research institute under the scheme.

The Super Science Fellowships scheme aims to attract the best and brightest early-career researchers from within Australia and around the world in three key areas: space science and astronomy; marine and climate sciences; and future industries research - biotechnology and nanotechnology.

"These Fellowships will enable The University of Western Australia to continue to develop its research into areas of importance to Australia while providing opportunities for our most promising early-career researchers," UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson said.

"The number of fellowships awarded to our University, which received ten per cent of the total funding allocated, recognise the contribution we are making to crucial national and international research."

The Australian Research Council, which administers the scheme, approved five Fellows to begin at UWA in 2010.

Two of the five Super Science Fellowships allocated to the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) will be based at UWA.  ICRAR is playing a significant strategic role in Australia's bid to host the Square Kilometre Array, as an international mega-science project.

An additional three Super Science Fellows (within the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology) will research novel biotechnology-based solutions that can be implemented in a variety of cereal crops to reduce the use of phosphate fertiliser in agriculture and unlock the large phosphate pool not used by plants in soil.

In the second round of the scheme for projects starting in 2011, two UWA projects have received funding for another five approved Super Science Fellowships .

Two Super Science Fellowships have been allocated to a successful proposal that will determine how the survival of one of the world's most pristine and best preserved coral reefs, Ningaloo Reef, is linked to the response of Australia's Indian Ocean to climate change.  Three Fellows have been approved under a proposal for a fundamental study of electronic transport in advanced semiconductor nanostructures.

UWA will now undertake a process of competitive national and international recruitment to fill the fellowship positions.

Media references

Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716

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