News

ACU researchers win more than $2.5 million in grants

ACU researchers in education and early Christian studies have been awarded more than $2.5 million in Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grants.

Deputy-Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) Professor Abid Khan said the successful funding of five new research projects demonstrated ACU’s excellence in education and late ancient history.

“These projects have the potential to influence both cultural knowledge of history, societal habits and engagement around artificial intelligence, and literacy developments in the growing industrial technology sector,” Professor Khan said.

The Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education (ILSTE) has received $929,500 to understand how artificial intelligence (AI) impacts on children’s play, learning and development, in a project led by Professor Suzy Edwards.

While early years educators have used AI to assess children’s development and discover new ways of learning, little is known about the impact of AI use among young children.

The research will inform a new AI for the Early Years Statement which will support parents and educators in making better decisions around AI design and use with young children.

Professor Kathy Mills, also from ILSTE, has been awarded $548,600 to address gaps in the use of AI and virtual, mixed, and augmented reality technologies in Australian schools.

The research aims to improve multimodal literacy in primary and secondary Australian students, a key learning outcome of the Australian curriculum.

ACU National School of Education literacy educator Dr Yaegan Doran was awarded a $457,000 grant. He will lead a team addressing major literacy issues faced by students who are studying Industrial Technology in senior high school.

At the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Associate Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies Kylie Crabbe, will lead a team to conduct new research into the history of nighttime activities that were once popular in the late ancient world. The project, which has been awarded $378,000, has the potential to generate new exhibitions and programs on late ancient history in museums and observatories.

Fellow IRCI scholar Dr Michael Hanaghan has been awarded $214,000 to lead a team that will produce the first comprehensive understanding of how texts in Late Antiquity were translated.

ACU researchers have also successfully received grants for projects led by other universities.

They include Dr Kristie Flannery from the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences. She is a co-investigator of a $618,568 grant project seeking to uncover the complex historical origins of Micronesia. Dr Flannery will travel to Mexico and Spain to access archival material revealing the conquering of Micronesia. The grant will support one new PhD student at ACU and honours stipends for two ACU students.

Associate Professor Benjamin Mountford will join a project led by the University of Adelaide that will research the oft-neglected history of Australian rail through a grant of $461,067.

The Australian Government announced 536 new research grants worth a total of $343.2 million under their Discovery Projects scheme for 2025, including the five projects led by ACU researchers.

This latest ARC funding announcement follows ACU’s successful ARC Linkage grant of $1.005 million for the Deadly Home Reading project. This parent-and-child program will support families to teach their young children how to read. The research project will be led by researchers from ACU’s Institute for Positive Psychology and Education and the Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy in partnership with the Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation, the traditional custodians of the Hunter region of NSW.