Celebrating creative research translation by Australian Centres of Excellence
Author ADM+S Centre
Date 24 August 2026
From a biodegradable coral sculpture, to a graphic novel on the fate of the earth and a video transforming human gaze into a visual landscape, the winners of the inaugural ARC Centres of Excellence Creative Communication Competition have been announced.
Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) have taken out first and second place across two competition categories, highlighting the creative ways research can be communicated beyond traditional academic formats.
Jiaman He from ADM+S at RMIT University received first prize in the 1-Minute Video category for Gaze Trails. Created in Python using an open-source eye-tracking dataset, Jiaman’s video artwork transforms human gaze into a visual landscape. Each coloured line represents the eye-movement trajectory of a different person as they read or search for information.
The result is a striking visualisation of something we rarely stop to consider: even when we look at the same world, we don’t necessarily see it in the same way.
Associate Professor Timothy Graham from ADM+S at QUT received second prize in the Digital Artwork category for Anatomy of an Online Crowd.
Tim’s artwork uses a force-directed network visualisation to represent coordinated behaviour on Twitter during the 2020 #ReopenAmerica protest movement. Each of the 7,280 nodes represents an account on X (formerly Twitter), while the 26,513 links show accounts that repeatedly acted together within 300 seconds.
Held as part of National Science Week 15–23 August 2026, the competition celebrated leading researchers and research teams who are not only advancing ground-breaking research, but also finding creative new ways to engage with communities and communicate the impact of their work.
The competition highlighted the many ways researchers can share their research, showing that impactful research communication can take many forms, from visual storytelling and artistic interpretation to short-form video and creative narratives.
“The competition has showcased the talent, imagination and passion across ARC Centres of Excellence, and the many ways art, storytelling, humour and visual media can help make research more accessible, engaging and relevant to the community”, said Bonnie Johnson, Director of Communications and Engagement at the Australian Research Council.
Researchers and Centre members from nine participating ARC Centres of Excellence were invited to communicate their own research, or the work of their lab or Centre, through six creative categories: photography/microscopy, digital artwork, drawing/painting/sculpture, memes, one-minute videos, and graphic novels/comics/zines.
“These entries show that research communication can be so much more than journal articles, reports and presentations. Creativity gives researchers another way to connect with people and bring ideas to life.”
The response was strong, with more than 2,270 people viewing the entries and casting their votes for the People’s Choice Award.
Entries were assessed by a panel of expert judges:
- Bonnie Johnson, Director, Communications and Engagement at the Australian Research Council
- Associate Professor Jen Martin, Leader of the Science Communication Teaching Program and Academic Lead for Graduate Research at the University of Melbourne
- Alicia Sometimes, Australian writer, poet and broadcaster
Judges considered creativity, originality, clarity of research communication and visual impact.
The ARC Creative Communication Competition was a collaboration between the ADM+S, 21st Century Weather, Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science, OzGrav, Plants for Space, Dark Matter, Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture, Synthetic Biology, and GETCO2.
The full list of winners is available on the ARC CoE Creative Communication Competition website.
