Grants

ARC Discovery Projects 2025

Three Faculty of Arts projects were successful in the latest round of ARC Discovery Projects

Distinguished Professor Bronwyn Carlson (Department of Critical Indigenous Studies); Associate Professor Debbie Bargallie (Griffith University); Associate Professor David Nolan (University of Canberra); Dr Archie Thomas (UTS)

What does ‘doing diversity’ do, and how can it be done differently? This project aims to take stock of the state of news media’s ‘diversity problem’—developing the first detailed, Australia-wide study of how news media organisations respond to criticism of the makeup of their workforce. We will examine what initiatives are being taken to diversify news media workplaces and their workforce, and the frameworks and approaches to understanding and addressing the problems of racism, discrimination, and harm inside the workplace. We will build new knowledge on strategies and practices of survival employed by diverse media workers who navigate careers in often hostile environments, using this to inform a set of strategies for industry to improve their practices, and make news media organisations safer workplaces. $683,324

Professor Paul Formosa (Department of Philosophy); Associate Professor Rita Matulionyte (Macquarie Law School); Associate Professor Sarah Bankins (Macquarie Business School); Dr Raphaël Millière (Department of Philosophy); Professor Dr Alain Strowel (Catholic University of Louvain)

Generative AI and Creative Industries: Ethical, Legal and Work Implications. Generative AI is creating significant new challenges in the creative industries as it consumes the copyrighted outputs of creative workers to generate content that can compete with the outputs of those same workers. Using an innovative interdisciplinary approach and industry collaborations, this project will generate solutions to the ethical, philosophical, legal, and workplace problems created by Generative AI in the creative industries, a sector contributing $90 billion and over 700,000 jobs to the economy. The national benefit of this project will be the design of an innovative framework for responding to this economy-altering technology in a fair and ethical manner, while drawing on the perspectives of impacted creative workers. $480,554

Associate Professor Rita Matulionyte (Macquarie Law School); Professor Farah Magrabi (FMHHS); Professor Amin Beheshti (FSE); Professor Jyh-An Lee (Chinese University of Hong Kong); Dr Daria Kim (Max Planck Institute, Munich)

'No' to Black Box: Towards Transparent and Safe AI in Healthcare. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers immense potential for various sectors, there is little information about how AI applications are developed and tested. This lack of transparency contributes to AI safety issues and undermines trust. In healthcare, these challenges have led to limited adoption of AI in practice, with lost opportunities for patients and healthcare systems. Based on new empirical and international comparative data, this project will develop an AI Transparency Map that identifies stakeholder transparency needs and current gaps. Outcomes will include a framework of policy measures to improve AI transparency. Australia will benefit from safer and more effective adoption of AI in healthcare and other high-stake sectors. $532,363

Professor Niloufer Selvadurai (Macquarie Law School) is a Chief Investigator on a successful application led by MQBS for the project ‘Consumer Data Privacy Risk Analysis and Management in the Open Banking Era’.

In addition, Professor Tess Lea (two applications), Associate Professor Ben Spies-Butcher, Professor Donna Houston, Associate Professor Fiona Miller (Macquarie School of Social Sciences), Dr Madeline Taylor (Macquarie Law School), Professor Bronwen Neil, Professor Tanya Evans and Dr Isobelle Barrett Meyering (History and Archaeology) are Chief Investigators on Discovery Projects led by other universities, as follows:

• Transborder Electricity Infrastructures and Geopolitics (Western Sydney University)
• Embedding Net Zero Carbon Emissions in Northern Australia (Deakin University)
• The Climate Economy: Emerging Strategies for Australia (University of Sydney)
• Understanding place-based repair in climate-affected communities (Deakin University)
• Just transmission: advancing coherence in Australia’s electricity policy (University of Canberra)
• Translation and Transformation in Late Antiquity (Australian Catholic University)
• Grandparenting in Australia: a history (1945-2025) (Australian National University)
• Human Rights and Corporal Punishment: Australia and Britain, 1970-2000 (University of Sydney)

2025 State Library of NSW Fellows

Dr Zac Roberts, from the Department of Critical Indigenous Studies, has been awarded the Australian Religious History fellowship by the State Library of New South Wales for the project, ‘Changing Representations of Indigenous Peoples in the NSW Jewish Press’. The State Library celebrated the 50th anniversary of the prestigious research program with its largest-ever cohort of fellows, awarding a total of $186,000 across eight categories.

Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success 2025 First Nations Fellows

Lauren Tynan, Lecturer in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences, is the recipient of a ACSES First Nations Fellowship 2025 for the project ‘Kin and Country learning: developing Indigenous pedagogies for Australian higher education’. The project aims to address the issue of inadequate Indigenous perspectives and pedagogies in higher education teaching and learning. Resources that prioritise Indigenous perspectives, knowledges and pedagogies will contribute to cultural safety for Indigenous students, in turn assisting in more equitable participation in higher education.

The Federation Press

Dr Vannessa Ho, PhD graduate from the Macquarie Law School, has won the coveted Holt Prize from The Federation Press for her thesis ‘Facilitating Appropriate Forum Choices in Transnational Intellectual Property Litigation’. The judges of this year’s Prize, The Hon. James Allsop AC, Elizabeth Collins SC and Emeritus Professor Barbara McDonald, provided the following comments.

“This manuscript concerns an interesting legal issue of great practical importance: how courts should deal with international disputes relating to intellectual, as opposed to physical, property. … The manuscript has a direct, clear and readable style and is well researched.”

The Holt Prize is a biennial publishing award which recognises excellence in unpublished legal works of an academic or practical nature. The competition is open to first-time authors and the winner is awarded a $12,000 cash prize and a publishing contract with The Federation Press.

ARC Linkage Projects

Professor Niloufer Selvadurai and Dr Holly Doel-Mackaway (Macquarie Law School) are Chief Investigators on ARC Linkage Projects led by MQBS and WSU respectively:

A digital literacy program empowering seniors with sensory loss

Child-centred evidence to drive meaningful social change for children

ACHIEVEMENTS

The Australian’s Research 2025 Magazine

The Australian’s annual Research 2025 magazine, compiled in partnership with analytics firm League of Scholars, names the best Australian researchers and research institutions across 250 research fields, based on research published in the world’s top journals and cited in the last five years.

The Faculty of Arts researchers recognised as leaders in their field were:

• Epistemology and Scientific History: Dr Pierrick Bourrat, Faculty of Arts
• Philosophy: Professor Neil Levy, Faculty of Arts

Macquarie University was also ranked as Australia’s top-performing research institution in:

• English Language and Literature
• Epistemology and Scientific History
• Humanities, Literature and Arts (general)
• Philosophy
• Early Childhood Education

Dr Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos, from the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature, was recognised as a national ‘Rising Star’ in his discipline.

More information on Macquarie’s results here.