Funding to accelerate success of WA early-and mid-career researchers
Nearly $3.6 million in funding was recently awarded to 20 early and mid-career researchers under the WA Near Miss Awards: Emerging Leaders 2021 (WANMA) Program.
The WANMA Program provides support for Western Australian researchers who have narrowly missed out on a highly sought-after National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grant.
Under this program, Emerging Leadership grants provide funding to specifically enhance areas of the NHMRC application which were found to be improvable during the NHMRC peer review process. Recipients of Emerging Leadership grants will submit an improved application to the NHMRC, increasing their chances of winning a grant in a future selection round. The Emerging Leaders Fellowships provide full funding for 4 eligible WANMA applicants, enabling them to conduct work proposed in their NHMRC application, providing the benefits of that research while also building the recipients’ track records, making them more competitive for future grants.
Awarded under the WANMA program were 16 one-year Emerging Leadership Grants of $100,000 and 4 Emerging Leaders Fellowships of up to $600,000 each, provided over a two- or three-year period.
This program is funded by the Future Health Research and Innovation Fund, which provides a secure source of funding to drive health and medical research, innovation and commercialisation.
Below is the full list of recipients for the WA Near Miss Awards: Emerging Leaders 2021 program.
Recipient |
Administering Institution |
Project Title |
Funding Awarded |
| Fellowship Recipients | |||
| Clinical Associate Professor Stephen Macdonald | The University of Western Australia | Improving survival from sepsis through an integrated acute care research platform | up to $600,000 |
| Dr Hannah Moore | Curtin University | Data driven approaches to vaccine development, implementation and evaluation | up to $600,000 |
| Dr Marc Sim | Edith Cowan University | Preventing falls in older Australians: an appetite for change | up to $390,444 |
| Dr Anna Waterreus | The University of Western Australia | Longitudinal mental and physical health outcomes in people with psychotic disorders: Identifying enablers and barriers to recovery | up to $390,444 |
| Near-Miss Recipients | |||
| Associate Professor Christopher Brennan-Jones | Curtin University | Djaalinj Waakinj (Listening, Talking): partnering with the community to improve prevention, treatment and long-term outcomes for children with ear disease and hearing loss | $100,000 |
| Dr Nadim Darwish | Curtin University | Combatting Coronaviruses and Superbugs Using Smart Surfaces | $100,000 |
| Associate Professor Shannon Simpson | Curtin University | Arresting and reversing lung function decline for survivors of preterm birth | $100,000 |
| Dr Yu Yu | Curtin University | Spatial Mapping of Tyrosine Kinases in Ovarian Cancer to find Effective Therapy for Chemo-resistant Tumours | $100,000 |
| Associate Professor Rishi Kotecha | Curtin University | Novel therapeutic agents for infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia | $100,000 |
| Associate Professor Sam Abraham | Murdoch University | Tackling antimicrobial resistance human-animal interface: A One health approach | $100,000 |
| Associate Professor Belinda Brown | Murdoch University | Physical activity and dementia prevention: Establishing evidence for impact and translation | $100,000 |
| Associate Professor Glenn Arendts | The University of Western Australia | Remaking Emergency Departments for an Ageing Australia | $100,000 |
| Professor Neil Boudville | The University of Western Australia | Improving Outcomes in Dialysis Patients | $100,000 |
| Dr Gemma Cadby | The University of Western Australia | Sex-specific determinants of the human metabolome and lipidome, and their impact on cardiometabolic diseases | $100,000 |
| Dr Lucy Furfaro | The University of Western Australia | Sewers to cures: Bacteriophages as a targeted solution to Group B Streptococcal infections |
$100,000 |
| Dr Daniel Knight | The University of Western Australia | Understanding Clostridium difficile infection through One Health-focused genomics | $100,000 |
| Dr Pamela Laird | The University of Western Australia | Improved Lung Health for Indigenous Children through Knowledge Translation | $100,000 |
| Associate Professor Edward Litton | The University of Western Australia | Improving outcomes for ICU survivors with anaemia | $100,000 |
| Dr Penelope Strauss | The University of Western Australia | Enhancing suicide prevention for young people of diverse genders and sexualities | $100,000 |
| Clinical Professor Tobias Strunk | The University of Western Australia | Reducing the burden of neonatal sepsis | $100,000 |