$1.9 million awarded to UniSA researchers to solve some of Australia’s most pressing issues

04 December 2019

Five UniSA researchers have won Federal Government funding to investigate some of Australia’s key priorities in the economic, commercial, environmental and cultural spheres.

A total of $1.9 million in Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Projects has been awarded to the following researchers, starting in 2020:

• Professor Jiuyong Li ($360,000) who will aim to develop data mining methods to detect algorithmic discriminations and to build fair decision models. Prof Jiuyong expects to provide techniques for regulatory organisations to detect discriminations in algorithmic decisions, and for various companies and organisations to build fair decision systems;
  
  
• Professor Carol Kulik ($303,415) who will investigate the disparate progress in gender equality among global organisations. Gender equality has social and economic value but despite decades of equal opportunity legislation and investment in gender initiatives, gender inequality persists in organisations all around the world;
  
  
• Associate Professor Jun Ma ($350,000) who will explore a novel approach to polymer/nanosheet composites. His project will involve embedding nanosheet preparation within polymer melt to both remove the inhaling hazard and lower the cost. This project is expected to generate new knowledge of these composites to benefit industry;
  
  
• Professor Maureen Dollard ($477,782) who will investigate the plausible link between distress at work and Australia’s high levels of antidepressant use. The project will explore the role that corporate climate plays in work design, distress, mental health problems and antidepressant use. It will also determine if antidepressant use has led to an underestimation of work stress;
  
  
• Professor Stanley Miklavcic ($420,000) who will aim to better understand the physiological effects of soil salinity and how salt and water is transported in plants, from root to leaf. The project will explore tissue tolerance, osmotic tolerance and ionic tolerance and discover new mechanisms by which plants can stave off the effect of salt stress.

The projects are part of a national pool of $285 million in funding announced today by the Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan for 660 new research collaborations to start in 2020.

Media contact: Candy Gibson office +61 8 8302 0961 mobile: +61 434 605 142 email: candy.gibson@unisa.edu.au