Fifteen Fellows receive 2026 Discovery Project funding

The Australian Academy of the Humanities is delighted to see 15 Fellows awarded Discovery Projects in the 2026, round 1, by the Australian Research Council.

ARC Discovery Projects offer crucial funding to develop new knowledge and expand Australia’s research capacity. Research projects funded by the ARC’s National Competitive Grants Program such as those awarded under the Discovery Projects scheme have been found to generate $3.32 in economic output for every $1 of research funding.

This round of projects includes understanding how Australians experienced and lived with polio, ancient wisdom on coping with grief and loss, how virtual reality might foster empathy among people, and the first ever global history of the hysterectomy.

Our congratulations to all Fellows, and other humanities researchers who received funding in this round.

Professor Han Baltussen FAHA

The University of Adelaide

Consoling the Self: Historical Grief Strategies and the Healing Arts.

This project studies the rich store of Greek and Roman writings on how to cope with grief, caused by the death of family or a friend, but also the result from any significant loss, such as respect, honour, job, pet, or one’s country. By using a novel, interdisciplinary approach in line with the burgeoning fields of the history of emotions and the healing arts (writing, bibliotherapy, music, etc.) and building on my earlier grief studies in antiquity (2009-2018), it will use modern grief theory as a lens to exploit the sophisticated strategies of Greece and Rome and extract coping mechanisms for modern times. With the many real and potential losses facing humanity today the project aims to benefit from ancient wisdom.

Professor Tim Bayne FAHA

With Dr Yuri Cath; Dr Richard Skarbez; Dr Mary Walker and Dr Margot Strohminger.

La Trobe University

Virtual Reality and Knowing What It Is Like.

This project aims to investigate the idea that virtual reality (VR) is an ‘empathy machine’ that can simulate the experiences of other people and thereby give us knowledge of what it is like to have those experiences. The project expects to advance our understanding of this issue by bringing together philosophical work on ‘what it is like’ knowledge and work in psychology on immersive VR. Expected outcomes include a theory of how VR can give us degrees of ‘what it is like’ knowledge, and a normative analysis of what can go wrong when we try to use VR to understand other people. This should provide significant benefits, including guidelines for the ethical use of these ’empathy machines’, and practical advice on improving their accuracy.

Professor Heather Burke FAHA

With Professor Lynley Wallis; Dr Jillian Huntley; Dr Yinika Perston; and Assistant Professor Brandi MacDonald.

Griffith University

Enriching Madjedbebe: Mirarr, archaeology and Jabiluka’s cultural heritage.

This co-designed project will enrich the heritage significance of Australia’s oldest site, Madjedbebe, by contextualising it within the surrounding Jabiluka landscape, NT. In partnership with Mirarr Traditional Owners, we will explore archaeological and other heritage sites, using innovative methods, to reveal cultural connections over 65,000 years. We aim to advance knowledge of this critical site, create new knowledge of the cultural wealth of Jabiluka, and support Mirarr aspirations to tell their own stories in their own ways. Outcomes will include increased awareness of the unique Jabiluka landscape, improved community health and well-being, and generation of content for a planned World Heritage Interpretive Centre in Jabiru.

Professor Catharine Coleborne FAHA FASSA

The University of Newcastle

My Mother’s Polio: Australian Experiences of Poliomyelitis, 1950s to 1960s.

This project will reveal the health and illness experience of poliomyelitis (polio) in Australia in the mid-twentieth century, especially for families, and with attention to regional histories. Polio’s grim history remains largely hidden from narratives of Australian life in the postwar period. This research aims to model historical research into the common and divergent experiences of illness by using collections of oral memories of polio alongside archival records such as welfare organisational records, published and unpublished memoir, fiction, and medical writing. Drawing valuable connections between cultural and historical collections held in libraries, archives, and museums, it will raise awareness of the public memory of polio.

Professor Nicholas Enfield FAHA

With Professor Jack Sidnell.

The University of Sydney

Reason-giving in the wild: A cross-linguistic study.

This project aims to elucidate a unique aspect of human behaviour: the giving of reasons for our actions, decisions, and beliefs. The project will investigate reason-giving – core to critical thinking and cognitive literacy – through an innovative comparison of everyday interactions across diverse cultures, using video-recorded data. The research is expected to advance the science of reasoning in social life, producing the first baseline empirical data on reason-giving, and new knowledge on whether patterns of reason-giving are universal or culture-specific. Anticipated benefits include a better understanding of biased or flawed reasoning, to improve decision-making, reframe public discourse, and develop cognitive literacy.

Emeritus Professor Paul Griffiths FAHA

With Dr Pierrick Bourrat; Professor David Raubenheimer; Professor Charles Pence; Emeritus Professor Cynthia Beall.

Macquarie University

Health, Biological Fitness and Environmental Diversity.

Health is often impaired when evolved biological mechanisms interact with modern environments. But the idea that an ‘ancestral’ lifestyle will maximise health has been rightly derided as ‘paleofantasy’. Our team includes leaders of two fields that have taken a more productive approach to the impacts of diverse environments on biological fitness and on health: nutritional ecology and the evolutionary anthropology of altitude adaptation. Making explicit the ways in which these fields define reference environments and assess biological fitness will facilitate research on other health impacts of environmental diversity. This interdisciplinary collaboration will demonstrate the value of philosophy in science as opposed to philosophy of science.

Associate Professor Amanda Harris FAHA

With Associate Professor Christopher Coady; Dr Laura Case; Professor Michelle Scott and Dr Nicole Cherry.

The University of Sydney

Sounding solidarity, sovereignty and citizenship in post-war music exchange.

This project aims to generate new perspectives on Australian/US transnational music history by investigating how Aboriginal/African American post-war musical encounters impacted Australian and US democracy discourses in the lead-up to the 1967 Australian Constitutional Referendum and the 1964/65/68 Civil Rights Acts in the US. Through artistic research methods, we seek to draw back into practice the musical strategies for articulating sovereignty and solidarity that managed to change minds about the nature of citizenship in the post-war years. The benefits for understanding historical exchange between Aboriginal/African American musicians should be expansive for historical knowledge and flow on to impact curriculum and cultural programming.

Professor Catherine Mills FAHA

With Associate Professor Neera Bhatia; Dr Karin Hammarberg; Dr Molly Johnston and Dr Giselle Newton.

Monash University

Ethical, social and regulatory implications of informal sperm donation.

This project aims to address ethical, social and regulatory issues in sperm donation for family formation in Australia to ensure that all people who need the assistance of a sperm donor to become a parent can do so safely. The project expects to generate new knowledge to address the informal provision of sperm via the internet, while also improving the formal and regulated system of sperm donation. Expected outcomes include a more ethically robust and equitable system for accessing donor sperm for family formation achieved through cohesive, stakeholder-informed recommendations. It is expected to have long-lasting benefits for people who donate sperm, people who need to access donor sperm and for people conceived through sperm donation.

Professor Julian Millie FAHA

With Dr James Hoesterey; Associate Professor Ismail Alatas and Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh.

Monash University

Indonesia in the global geography of Islamic knowledge

Indonesia has branded itself on the global stage as the home of ‘moderate Islam’, yet in the world of Islamic learning Indonesia is a consumer in a one-way flow. Indonesian students still flock to centres of learning in the Middle East where Indonesian thought is not studied. The project addresses two problems arising from this disparity. Do Indonesia’s claims to be the home of moderate Islam have impact in global hierarchies of Islamic learning? How significant are the domestic political tensions generated within Indonesia by traditions of study in the Middle East? Project is relevant to Australia because it researches the position of Australia’s regional partner in a network of international relations to which Australia is an outsider.

Professor Alison Downham Moore FAHA FRHistS SFHEA

AAICD

with Associate Professor Elizabeth Stephens; Dr Christopher O’Neill and Professor Melissa Gregg.

The University of Queensland

A Cultural History of Workplace Fatigue

This project aims to investigate how the historical and cultural construction of workplace fatigue shapes the design and implementation of fatigue management technologies in an age of AI. Through historical research, stakeholder consultation, and focus-group studies, it will analyse and evaluate the impact of automated fatigue management technologies on diverse users. Expected outcomes include better understanding of end user experiences, recommendations for more equitable fatigue management, and co-developed models for product design that mitigate the risk of automated discrimination. Benefits include improved workplace health outcomes, enhanced diversity-informed technology design, and international academic and industry collaboration.

Professor Alison Downham Moore FAHA

A Global History of Hysterectomy, 1860-2020.

This project will deliver the first global history of hysterectomy, tracing its roots in 19th-century Europe to its intercultural spread throughout Australasia and South Asia. Challenging inaccurate traditional narratives, it will explore past treatment rationales, internal medical debates, medical globalisation, and patient self-reported experiences, to elucidate present healthcare equities. Foregrounding forgotten voices and intercultural exchanges, the project will uncover the historical and ongoing legacies of hysterectomy, including its relationship to intersectional questions of gender, race, class, caste and disability. Its outcomes will make a major contribution to the new international field of gender in the medical humanities.

Emeritus Professor Nicolas Rasmussen FAHA

With Associate Professor Maureen O’Malley; and Associate Professor Claas Kirchhelle.

The University of Sydney

Symbiotic Synergies: How the Body Became a Chimera (1950-2000).

This project aims to investigate how central concepts in today’s revolutionary microbiome paradigm formed in earlier microbiology. We seek to study how the microbes inhabiting us came to be seen as symbiotic, and how certain concepts of symbiosis led to a new view of human bodies as multi-species chimeras. The project aims to generate historical and philosophical knowledge that can inform the metamorphoses biomedicine is now undergoing in the light of discoveries showing that health and disease depend on our microbes. Expected outcomes are novel interdisciplinary insights into the conceptual transformations that led to microbiome science. Benefits include a public-facing combination of scientific, historical and philosophical knowledge.

Professor Katie Steele FAHA

With Professor Susumu Cato.

The Australian National University

Ethics, Sustainability and Future Generations.

This project aims to evaluate conceptions of the renowned Principle of Sustainability in terms of their underlying ethical and scientific commitments. It expects to provide a philosophical basis for debating and applying Sustainability, and to advance ethical theory through new models and ways of analysing the possible long-term consequences of choice options. The expected outcomes include a novel conceptual toolkit that can facilitate ethically robust consideration of the future in policy deliberations across diverse contexts. This should provide significant benefits, in addressing a key obstacle to achieving the far-sighted public decision making that is required to safeguard the wellbeing of present and future generations of Australians.

Professor Paul Tacon FAHA

With Associate Professor Sally May; Dr Laura Rademaker; Dr Jessyca Hutchens; Professor Joakim Goldhahn and Dr Luke Taylor

The University of Adelaide

Re-storying Arnhem Land’s Aboriginal Knowledge Holders.

This project aims to re-story the lives and knowledge of Aboriginal Elders who worked with anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt in Arnhem Land from 1940s–1970s. The Berndt fieldnotes have recently (2024) emerged from embargo, providing a unique opportunity to foreground and reclaim the contributions of Aboriginal participants in their long-term collaboration. Combining archival/collection research and oral history recording, this community-led research expects to produce new biographies of key Aboriginal Elders, re-centring their experiences in anthropological research; and to repatriate digital archival materials. Planned outputs (a book, short films, and an exhibition) will be used to support community arts and cultural programs.

Professor Matt Trinca AM FAHA

With Professor Laurajane Smith; Dr Alexandra Dellios; Professor Tanya Evans; Professor James Smithies and Professor Paul Ashton.

The Australian National University

Australians and the Past Revisited.

Twenty-five years ago, researchers carried out an ARC-funded survey about how Australians discover, think about and use the past in their lives. The digital revolution has since transformed the ways that people access historical knowledge and understanding. Using online surveys, focus groups and interviews with diverse Australians this project aims to investigate how Australians learn about, value and respond to their history and use it to address today’s social issues. Expected outcomes include better understanding of the value and significance of history and heritage for all Australians. This will benefit the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museum sector, teachers, the media and policy makers and help foster social inclusion.

Professor Sue Trevaskes FAHA

Griffith University

Securitising China through Comprehensive Social Governance.

This project aims to investigate China’s local social governance system, focusing on social governance action plans, pilot programs and plans for data-gathering technology in police-run governance centres. It examines how the Chinese Communist Party integrates police, government and community services to embed its ideology more deeply into citizens’ daily lives. The project expects to generate new knowledge in social governance by analysing the securitisation of grassroots governance. Expected outcomes include a new framework for understanding China’s social governance system and refined analytical methods. This research should benefit the Australian government by informing responses to political challenges from China’s security regime.

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