Optimising patient flow in hospitals, promoting social inclusion for refugees and using computational modelling to test orthopaedic devices are among Flinders University-led projects to receive funding in the Australian Research Council’s latest Linkage grants.

A total of four projects from areas including mathematics, biomedical engineering and health sciences will share in a pool of $1 million over the next four years as part of the 2013 funding round, announced today (Friday, June 28).

The Flinders University recipients of the ARC Linkage grants for 2013 are:

• Professor James Mitchell: Quantitative metrics for determining aquifer ecosystem state ($447,000) 

• Professor Mark Taylor (pictured): Virtual testing of orthopaedic devices as part of the design and development process: strategies to account for patient and surgical variability ($270,000)

• Professor Jerzy Filar: Congestion recovery and optimisation of patient flows ($215,733)

• Dr Anna Ziersch: Belonging begins at home: promoting social inclusion and wellbeing for asylum seekers and people from refugee backgrounds ($157,000)

Two other Flinders academics, Associate Professor Daryle Rigney from Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research and Associate Professor Steve Hemming from the School of the Humanities, are members of an ANU-based research project that has received a linkage grant of $629,5333. The project is entitled Return, Reconcile, Renew: understanding the history, effects and opportunities of repatriation and building an evidence base for the future.