Unis win grants

THE University of Western Australia has secured almost $17 million of funding for the next five years, making it the most significant recipient of allocations to WA universities from the Australian Research Council. UWA projects won funding under a range of ARC research categories with discovery projects winning total funding of $13.2 million, linkage projects round one $1.9 million, linkage international $144,138, and linkage infrastructure and equipment $1.35 million. Major allocations to UWA researchers include: Professor Cheryl Praeger, $1 million to support her work on pure mathematics; Professor David Blair, $900,000 for work on gravitational wave detectors; and Professor Harvey Miller, more than $1 million to support his group of plant bio-chemists. Murdoch University scientists have also received funding. The university said it had been granted $800,000 in national funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to help researchers fighting allergic asthma and another team investigating chronic pain suffered by burns victims.