Funding to boost transdisciplinary research – supporting solutions for climate change, energy transition, and disaster resilience
The Australian National University (ANU) Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions (ICEDS) is delighted to announce twelve projects have been selected for funding.
In the third ICEDS Seed Funding round, a total of $80,000 has been awarded to novel ANU research projects including two Early Career Researchers (ECR) grants.
The projects advance innovative solutions to address climate change, energy system transitions and disaster preparedness, covering topics such as the gender-climate nexus, hydrogels for hydrogen storage, Indigenous energy planning, climate change education, carbon recycling, and long-range radio for flood response. The research teams represent 20 Schools, Institutes, and Centres and 4 Colleges across ANU.
Professor Llewelyn Hughes, ICEDS Director said, “The ANU seeks to tackle the biggest challenges through research excellence and innovation. ICEDS is proud to be supporting multidisciplinary teams solving problems in climate change adaptation and mitigation, the energy transition, and disaster risk and resilience.
“We were particularly delighted by the wide range of projects supported under ICEDS seed funding, enabling teams from across the university to work together. Supported projects also span across the nation, from flood-impacted east cost areas of northern NSW to the far west coast of WA.”
The 12 successful projects for 2026 are:
Project | Chief Investigator | Team |
|---|---|---|
Pilot study of topology-optimised hydrogels for safe and efficient hydrate-based hydrogen storage | Dr Yuxuan (Richard) Zhang | Associate Professor Xiaolin Wang, Professor Valeska Ting, Professor Adam Perriman, Dr Parimal Bhomick, Dr Melinda Krebsz, Lijin Chen |
Launching Australia’s First Community- and Evidence-Informed Gender-Climate Nexus Strategy and Shadow Reports | Tegan Clark | Ruby Crandell, Dr Elise Stephenson, Professor Sue Harris-Rimmer |
Strengthening Climate Change Education in Australian Schools | Dr Hannah Feldman | Tanja Russell, Dr Rachel Stuart, Emeritus Professor Mark Howden, Dr Graham Walker, Sharon Forwood |
Outdoor Flat-Panel Prototype Validation for Scalable Photocatalytic Seawater-to-Hydrogen Production | Professor Zongyou Yin | Dr Zhehao Sun, Md Sakib Hasan Khan, Professor Joe Coventry, Dr Ehsan Tavakoli-Nabavi |
Reverse water-gas shift catalyst performance in a process for recycling carbon in direct reduced iron reactor top-gas | Dr Daniel Lane | Dr Lucy Gloag, Rebekah Zhou, Dr Mahdiar Taheri, Profesor John Pye, Associate Professor Alireza Rahbari, Professor Joe Coventry |
Intermediaries in Regional Change: A Focus on Hay | Sarah Boddington | Associate Professor Rebecca Colvin, Professor Kate Henne |
Local Government at the Solar and Battery Circular Economy Frontier in Australia | Dr Rabin Basnet | Laura Jones, Dr Rini Astuti, Dr Melinda Krebsz, Dr Gabriel Bartholazzi, Anna Lloyd |
Beyond Conventional Composite Cathodes: Mixed Ionic-Electronic Conductors for Next-Generation All-Solid-State Energy Storage | Dr Borui Liu | Tzu-Yueh Li, Dr Teng Lu, Professor Yuerui Lu, Professor Jodie Bradby, Professor Yun Liu |
Local Long-Range (LoRa) Radio Network for Resilient Flood Response Communication | Dr Jeremy Smith | Dr Naomi Hay, Asanka Peramune, Dr Louisa King, |
Integrated Renewable Energy Prospectivity Mapping for Indigenous Energy Planning | Dr Bin Lu | Brad Riley, Dr Francis Markham |
What Regions Know -Surfacing the Missing Piece in Economic Systems Change | Dr Chris Browne | Michelle Cheah, Siobhan Hudson, Dr Jeremy Smith, Dr Kim Blackmore |
Hydrogen storage | Dr Melinda Krebsz | Palash Dhar, Lijin Chen, Dr Parimal Bhomick, Dr Mahdiar Taheri, Assoicate Professor Alireza Rahbari, Associate Professor Xiaolin Wang, Professor Valeska Ting |
This is the third round of Seed Funding Grants administered by ICEDS. The first two rounds of funding were offered in 2022 and 2023, with projects delivered from 2022-2025.
ICEDS Communities of Practice
ICEDS has begun coordinating our member activities into thematic groupings to build and facilitate transdisciplinary research within the University. Six interdisciplinary groupings called Communities of Practice (ComPs) draw upon the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) thematic areas. The research projects selected are aligned with the following six ComP themes: Adaption & Resilience, Empowered Communities, Finance & Economics, Land Use, Water & Conservation, Mitigation & Just Transition and Technology & Innovation.