16 November 2012

The Faculty of Arts at the University of Queensland was awarded 1.63 Million by the Australian Research Council recently, to help fund research projects that investigate media transformation in Australia, early musical development, plastic packaging and musical exchange in Baroque Europe.

In the current round of ARC grants, the Arts Faculty researchers attained an outstanding 36.8 percent success rate.

In its highest success rate for several years, the Faculty was awarded $1,342,748 for Discovery Projects, $289,185 for Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA) and $645,000 in Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) funding.

“This is an outstanding result for the Faculty, with our success rate in all schemes above the Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA), ARC and UQ averages. Congratulations to all,” Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Professor Fred D’Agostino said.

“The importance of this research, in knowledge creation at UQ, Australia and throughout the world cannot be overestimated,” he said.

Seven Discovery projects supported by the scheme include:
• Being and becoming musical: towards a cultural ecological model of early musical development ($330,000)
• Media transformation in its Australian and international contexts: analysis and theory building ($247,748)
• The skin of commerce: the role of plastic packaging in the construction of food security, waste and consumer activism in Australia ($270,000)
• Secularisation and British literature, 1600-1800 ($170,000)
• Frontiers of Australian science popularisation ($125 000)
• Black Americans and the Pacific War: African-American encounters with the South Pacific,1941-1945 ($110,000)
• The well-travelled musician: John Sigismond Cousser and cultures of musical exchange in Baroque Europe ($90,000)

Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA):
• Dr Nathan Garvey was awarded a Discovery Early Career Research Award for his project The Australian penal colonies and British print culture, 1786-1900 ($289,185)

Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF):
• The AustLit resource: supporting research in studies of Australian literary and narrative ($645,000)

Media: Dania Lawrence, d.lawrence@uq.edu.au phone, (07) 33 65 9163