The University of Queensland has received the nation’s second highest funding in the second round of the 2003 Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project grants announced yesterday by Federal Education, Science and Training Minister Dr Brendan Nelson.
UQ was awarded 16 Linkage grants that attracted $3.45 million in ARC funds, to which institutional and industry partners will add approximately $4.69 million. The grants will also fund 16 new Australian Postgraduate Awards – Industry (APAI) PhD Scholarships.
This second round of funding brings UQ’s total of new grants for this scheme in 2003 to 42; the second highest in the nation. The total value of ARC funds and partner contributions to these projects will exceed $23 million over the next five years.
The funding was second only to the University of Melbourne, which was awarded 29 ARC Linkage grants with ARC funding valued at $6.19 million. The Australian National University was awarded 16 grants totaling at $3.37 million, Monash University 18 grants totaling $2.96 million and The University of Wollongong received 18 grants totaling $2.43 million.
Within Queensland, QUT was awarded 11 grants totaling $1.83 million, Griffith University nine grants totaling $1.18 million, the University of Southern Queensland one grant of $85,611 and James Cook University one grant of $80,485.
The highest funding allocation to a UQ-led project was worth $480,000 over four years with Plantic Technologies Ltd contributing $787,200 bringing the total external funding for the project to $1,267,200.
Dr Stewart McGlashan and Dr Peter Halley from UQ's School of Engineering, Dr Greg Lonergan from Swinburne University of Technology and Dr Rulande Rutgers on secondment from UQ at Plantic Technologies Ltd, are aiming to engineer and produce biodegradable injection molded products.
Plantic Technologies Ltd is a $6 million venture-capital funded spin-off company launched last year based on flexible biodegradable materials research conducted by the Cooperative Research Centre for International Food Manufacture and Packaging Science of which the UQ team are members.
"Only 20 percent of plastic packaging materials are recycled and the remainder accounts for fifty percent of landfill in Australia," Dr McGlashan said.
"The diversity of packaging materials to suit all applications makes roadside collection and recycling extremely difficult and expensive with limited environmental benefit.
"The development of sustainable, renewable and biodegradable packaging materials provides a genuine solution to a global waste and fossil resources depletion problem."
Dr McGlashan said the lead technology was a corn-starch based, water-soluble and biodegradable transparent and glossy sheet material, suitable for numerous thermo-forming applications including biscuit trays and blister packaging.
With the first order of PlanticTM materials placed by a multinational organisation last month, Dr Rutgers said the company was taking a global perspective and planned to expand into Europe over the next few years.
"The success of Plantic Technologies Ltd is an example of the fruitful outcome of collaborative research by UQ with other research institutions and industry," she said.
Other major UQ grants included:
* $377,000 plus $618,280 from SAP Australia (Corporate Research Centre Brisbane) for an information systems-based project creating the next generation of messaging technology. Project members include Professor Maria Orlowska and Dr Shazia Sadiq from UQ’s School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering and Dr Karsten Schulz and Dr Wasim Sadiq from SAP Australia.
* $330,000 plus $541,200 from Nanomics Biosystems Ptd Ltd for interdisciplinary engineering research into bead-based technology to be used in applications currently requiring DNA hybridisation to overcome existing deficiencies in microarray technology. Project members include Professor David Hume from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and School of Molecular and Microbial Sciences (SMMS), Dr Gwendolyn Lawrie from SMMS and Dr Matt Sweet from the IMB.
Professor David Siddle, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), said that he was delighted with the results.
“These results mean that UQ will be able to build on its existing successful partnerships with industry to deliver the research outcomes they require. He partnerships are critical to the development of a knowledge based economy”, he said.
“The researchers concerned deserve high praise for their wonderful efforts.”
Media: for more information, contact Professor Siddle (telephone 07 3365 9044) or Brad Turner at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2659).
