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More than $7 million awarded to Sydney researchers

15 November 2019

The University of Sydney has secured funding for 19 research projects through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards.

Federal Minister for Education Dan Tehan has announced $81.8 million in support for early career researchers, including more than $7 million for 19 projects at the University of Sydney.

The projects cover a broad range of areas including how bushfires amplify the impacts of invasive predators, lessons in probability theory from the 2008 global financial crisis, employers' perspectives on wage theft and the policy recommendations for housing unaffordability.

The Minister said, "This research will generate new knowledge, develop new technologies, and lead to new products and jobs."

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Duncan Ivison welcomed the announcement and congratulated recipients of the latest round of Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRAs).

“It’s pleasing to see the ARC will support the work of these promising early career researchers, which will help advance knowledge across a wide range of areas,” said Professor Ivison.

“The awards play an important role in helping researchers expand their research and I look forward to hearing the new insights that will result from research supported by this scheme.”

New understandings of employment law non-compliance

Dr Stephen Clibborn from the University of Sydney Business School has received $341,590 to generate new insights into effective regulation of work, reviewing the issue of non-compliance with minimum employment standards.

His research project aims to understand why some employers breach employment laws while others do not, and to identify to what extent current enforcement institutions encourage compliance. Based on the insights generated by the research, he aims to provide policy recommendations to government for improving compliance with employment laws.

Helping wildlife survive in an increasingly urbanised world

Dr Caragh Threlfall from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences in the Faculty of Science has received $426,071 for her project – ‘Success and the city: biodiversity responses in urban environments’.

Through developing and testing a framework linking urban expansion and biodiversity change, her project aims to identify favourable conditions that support biodiversity in the face of global urbanisation.

Australia’s changing housing landscape

As housing providers and consumers innovate with novel housing models and practices to find solutions to housing problems, contemporary housing thinking cannot grasp the reshaping of the housing landscape. Dr Sophia Maalsen from the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning has received $417,755 for her project – ‘Hacking Housing: Technologies, processes and practices of housing futures’.

Dr Maalsen’s research project aims to generate data about the diversity of housing models and to develop a conceptual framework to understand the new housing landscape as digital, rented and shared.