$3.7m boost for academic-industry collaboration

Each of these projects will bring together the expertise of academics, industry partners, and community organisations to tackle important issues and advance knowledge in their respective fields.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Emma Johnston offered her congratulations to the recipients, saying, "We are thrilled to see the diverse range of projects that have been awarded funding through the ARC Linkage program.”

“The University of Sydney is dedicated to advancing knowledge and making a positive impact on society, and these projects show the innovative thinking and hard work our academics and industry partners are applying to help our world change for the better. I look forward to following their progress.”

Professor Stefan Williams, from the Faculty of Engineering and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, was among the funding recipients. His team will partner with Reach Robotics and Geo Oceans, as well as academic partners, on a project worth $419,886 to improve the functionality of underwater robots.

In particular, Professor Williams and his team hope to improve robotic intervention and inspection tasks, which are essential in offshore industries, such as oil and gas, as well as in scientific exploration and defence.

“Our approach will improve perception and situational awareness through the fusion of multiple navigation and camera sensors,” Professor Williams said.

“We will use this improved scene understanding to effectively plan the motion of vehicles and manipulators through larger and more complex workspaces, enabling semi-supervised and autonomous task execution. Our project will demonstrate these capabilities in real-world marine deployments relevant to industry and marine science.”

Other successful projects and their lead academics are as follows:

•  Associate Professor Avril Alba, from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, will collaborate with the Jewish and Holocaust museums around Australia to access the long-term impact of Holocaust education programs, with total funding of $566,499.
• Dr Mark Baldry, from the Faculty of Engineering, will work with renewable energy companies 5B and Sun Cable to create the tools and know-how to optimise the design and development of solar farms. Sun Cable is currently developing the world’s largest solar farm in the Northern Territory. The project has been awarded $636,676.
• Associate Professor Sonia Liu, from the Faculty of Science, was awarded $711,551 to work with specialist chemical and animal nutrition company Evonik to enhance the affordable and environmentally-viable production of chicken-meat with improved bird welfare and flock health.
• Professor Robert Park, from the Faculty of Science, will work with S&W seed company and Intergrain on a project worth $928,845 to reduce the impact of crown rust in Australian oat production.
• Professor Richard Payne, from the Faculty of Science and ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science, will work on a $467,165 project with pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk to create a more environmentally friendly way to produce peptide and protein molecules.