With one of the highest success rates in the country, Flinders University has been awarded $2.4 million in fellowships from the ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) scheme for 2025.
With five successful applicants from 20 submitted, the 25 percent success rate puts Flinders in the top 6 nationally and highlights Flinders’ remarkable trajectory of research growth.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Raymond Chan congratulated the five fellows on their success and said the outcome was a fantastic result for Flinders.
“We are continuing to invest in research that tackles real-world challenges. Following our recent resounding successes in the ARC Industry grant and fellowship schemes, our commitment to excellence is once again reflected in the high success rate we have achieved in this year’s DECRAs,” said Professor Chan.
“Since 2018, Flinders has enjoyed the fastest growth in research income of any Australian university and data shows we have had an almost 140% growth in research income over the past five years.
“Our continued success in research funding is a testament to the hard work of our academics and industry partners, and the research and funding teams that support them. These grant applications take a lot of time and effort, so I extend my congratulations to all involved in this latest achievement.”
The five awarded projects cover topics ranging from sleep health, history, chemistry and evolution and also includes the country’s only Creative Arts and Writing fellowship.
Totalling $2,406,285, the five successful applicants and their projects are:
Associate Professor Amy Reynolds
College of Medicine and Public Health
At the intersection: Sleep disorders, shift work and young driver safety ($488,081)
‘Young workers are highly vulnerable to road safety accidents and fatalities. Two key factors that likely contribute to accidents are high prevalence in young drivers of shift work (>25%) and sleep disorders (>20%). This combined burden is rarely considered and represents a blind spot in understanding of young driver safety risks. This project will investigate the interplay between transition to shift work, sleep disorders and road safety for young drivers. Through this, I will provide a clearer understanding of decisions to drive drowsy, relationships with road safety incidents and protective factors to target. I will design interventions to help reduce the $147M of social costs attributable to drowsy driving fatalities in young drivers.’
Dr Matthew Firth
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Contesting Conquests: Pre-modern attempts to come to terms with the past ($476,281)
‘This project aims to provide extensive new knowledge about how societies experience and remember the trauma of conquest and colonisation. The project expects to make an innovative contribution to our understanding of histories of conquest, with a research focus on medieval and early modern English history writing. Anticipated outcomes include an unprecedented comprehensive study of the reception and transmission of England’s medieval conquests that will offer new insights into the intergenerational impact of conquest. This should provide significant benefits both inside and outside the academy through a wealth of novel evidence in support of ongoing debates around the legacies of conquest and colonisation in England, Australia and beyond.’
Dr Claire Henry
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Tackling the consumption of sexual violence on screen ($488,691)
‘The explosion of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) and child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) online is causing significant harm and presenting regulatory quandaries. Australia would be better prepared to tackle this escalating issue equipped with deep understanding of how the intersection of sexual violence and screen media has been conceptualised and regulated in other media (film, television and video games) and translated to online content. This research will advance our ability to prevent IBSA and CSEM consumption by investigating institutional discourses across media regulators (in Australia and overseas) and enhancing the cross-national and cross-sectoral dialogue on how to best address the consumption of sexual violence on screen.’
Dr Thomas Nicholls
College of Science and Engineering
New catalysts to harness electricity and light for chemical synthesis ($488,366)
‘New catalysts capable of harnessing electricity and visible light will be synthesised, extensively characterised, and used to develop new chemical reactions. The result will be catalysts that are more efficient and robust, enabling access to valuable molecules. The production of these catalysts will enable a better understanding of the intrinsic electrochemical and photophysical processes involved in electrophotocatalysis. The development of new synthetic methodology using these catalysts will enable a sustainable method to streamline access to large libraries of chemical compounds that are valuable especially to the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, textile industries and more.’
Dr Russell Bicknell
College of Science and Engineering
Defining the evolution of apex arthropod predators ($464,866)
‘Predation has been a central driver of evolution for more than 500 million years. Predatory arthropods, like crabs and scorpions, induce changes in their prey, such as increased speed, camouflage, and reinforced body parts. Concurrently, predators enhance their own ability to locate, pursue, and subdue prey. The aim of this project is to test whether the predatory arthropods converge upon functionally comparable adaptations, across lineages and over deep time, and the ecological ramifications of these structures. Expected outcomes and benefits include an innovative foundation for reconstructing ecologies of living and extinct Australian arthropods and answering long-standing questions regarding predator/prey co-evolution.’
A full list of funded DECRA projects can be found here: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2025 | Australian Research Council.
For more information on the ARC DECRA scheme, please visit the ARC website.