$2.6M in ARC Discovery Grants for 6 projects
Author Natalie Campbell
Date 31 October 2023
On 30 October the Australian Research Council announced a total of $220.2 million of funding as part of the ARC Discovery Projects scheme, including six projects involving ADM+S researchers.
Researchers from the ADM+S Centre will collaborate on the following projects funded over the next three years.
Professor Kalervo Gulson, Professor Greg Thompson, Professor Marcia McKenzie, Professor Sam Sellar, Associate Professor Kirsty Kitto, Dr Simon Knight, & Dr José-Miguel Bello y Villarino (ADM+S at The University of Sydney)
The rapid introduction of artificial intelligence into education is occurring with inadequate policy support. Additionally, there is a lack of stakeholder input into decisions about the use of AI in education. Utilising social science and data science approaches, this project aims to democratise policy about AI in education by building tools to monitor policies, and developing collaborative policy making methods. The expected outcomes include publicly available policy resources to anticipate, and respond to, the role of AI in education, and participatory frameworks for policy-making. The benefits include informed stakeholder engagement, and concrete policy recommendations that are globally relevant and adaptable to the Australian context.
Associate Professor Stephen Harrington, Professor Kristy Hess, Dr Aljosha Karim Schapals, and Associate Professor Timothy Graham (ADM+S at QUT)
This project examines an emergent series of tactics used by political actors (i.e. politicians, lobbyists, political groups, etc.) that we are calling ‘Dark Political Communication’ (DPC). DPC differs markedly from existing, well-established modes of political communication, as it often involves the deliberate spread of disinformation, use of highly inflammatory language, antagonism towards the press and democratic institutions, as well as actions that seek to exacerbate social discord. In this project, we will provide the first-ever complete account of DPC tactics, and provide a series of recommendations to journalists about how their practice can best evolve to address this novel communication paradigm.
Professor Andrew Roberts (ADM+S at University of Melbourne), Dr Celine van Golde, & Professor Kimberley Wade
The aim of this project is to establish how the use of Body Worn Cameras to record statements in domestic and family violence cases affects assessment of a complainant’s credibility at trial. It will generate new knowledge about the influence of: (i) the physical environment in which recordings are made, (ii) the audio and visual quality of recordings, and (iii) fact-finders’ (judges and jurors) emotional responses to recordings. Expected outcomes of the project include law reform and policy recommendations to improve the practice of recording victim/witness statements and management of the use of such evidence in criminal proceedings.
Professor Paul Long, Dr Ash Watson (ADM+S at UNSW), Dr Ali Alizadeh, Associate Professor Shane Homan, & Dr Thomas Bartindale
This project aims to fill a significant gap in the Australian Government’s National Cultural Policy to ‘Revive’ the cultural sector. The project expects to reveal the ignored sector of non-professional, homemade, amateur and do-it-yourself creativity. Intended outcomes include the first detailed study of the contribution of the 45% of Australians who creatively participate in the arts as producers of forms including poetry, music and fine art and their relationship with the professional cultural and creative industries. Participatory mapping methods that expand new knowledge should provide public benefits in broader recognition and understanding of the value of everyday Australian creativity, seeking to impact democratic policymaking.
Professor Patrik Wikstrom, Professor Jean Burgess & Dr Ariadna Matamoros Fernandez from ADM+S at QUT with Dr Joanne Gray and Dr Jonathon Hutchinson
This project is the first to systematically investigate how algorithmic content recommendation is shaping everyday Australian cultural experience over time, in the particular context of TikTok—the digital platform where Australians spend the most time online. The project provides critical evidence to support the government’s ongoing policy initiatives intended to regulate the activities of digital platforms. Its methodological innovations directly address the challenges of studying commercial platforms’ recommender systems through a mixed-method research design combining computational and qualitative analysis, bridging universal and individual perspectives and introducing ‘citizen science’ approaches to the field of platform studies.
Dr Xiangmin Zhou, Associate Professor Jeffrey Chan (ADM+S at RMIT University), Professor Dr Lei Chen, & Dr Timoleon Sellis
This project aims to create a next generation recommender system that enables enhanced task allocation and route recommendation on spatial crowdsourcing platforms. It expects to address key challenges in situation-aware reliable recommendation for big spatial crowdsourcing data, which is vital in improving users’ service experience and decision making. Expected outcomes of this project include advanced data models, efficient algorithms and query techniques to create a Crowd-guided Advanced Spatial Crowdsourcing Analytics (CASCA) system that is effective, efficient, crowd-guided, and situation-aware. It will benefit crowdsourced media data analysis and big data fields, bringing economic and social benefits to Australian industries and users.
The ARC Discovery Project scheme supports research that expands the knowledge base and research capacity in Australia and provides economic, commercial, environmental, social and/or cultural benefits for Australia.
Announcing the funding recipients, ARC CEO Ms Judi Zielke PSM said, “The Discovery Projects will share funding that supports excellent basic and applied research to expand Australia’s knowledge base and research capability, and enhance the scale and focus of research in the Australian Government priority areas.”
