[Aqualist] ARC DP26 and IN26 projects announced

Tue Oct 28 21:58:04 AEDT 2025

Dear Colleagues,

The ARC have recently announced the outcomes of the IN26 Discovery Indigenous and the DP26 Discovery Project  awards commencing in 2026. Successful projects broadly related to Quaternary research (including archaeology and Indigenous knowledge) are listed below, and as always, congratulations to those who were successful.

Overall, there were 17 DPs funded to around $13.8M for 2026. This is a considerable increase compared to last year when there were only 11 DPs totalling $8.0M, and even more so when compared to the previous year in 2024 when only 4 DPs were successful totalling $2.2M. There was also 1 Discovery Indigenous project funded in this broad disciplinary space to around $0.7M to commence in 2026.

It is vitally important to acknowledge the huge amount of effort and sacrifice of time that is required to submit these grants. To those who were not successful, thank you for continuing to generate great ideas and push the boundaries of our disciplines. Hopefully there will be future opportunities to fund the great work you are doing.

Please let me know if I have missed any and I can add them to the list.

Best wishes for 2026, Simon

Prof Simon Haberle
Professor of Natural History & Palaeoecology

School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia & the Pacific
The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 2600

__________________________

DISCOVERY INDIGENOUS IN26

James Cook University

IN260100143
Dr Vincent Backhaus; Professor Stewart Lockie; Professor Andrew Day
Caring for Country: Knowledge challenges to reconnecting with Country.
This project aims to investigate how Indigenous approaches to environmental care compete and navigate diverse environmental perspectives to co-existing landscape and climate priorities. The project is led by Indigenous researchers supporting Indigenous community researchers in a community of practice. The project expects to generate new knowledges about how Indigenous cultural landscape identities strengthen and support Indigenous collective agency. It also explores the more-than-two-way interaction of knowledges informing environmental care governed and determined by Indigenous communities. The study builds new collaborative frameworks for Indigenous communities to work effectively in complex environmental management arrangements.  $652,368.00

ARC DISCOVERY PROJECTS DP26

University of Wollongong

DP260102707
Professor Alexander Mackay; Professor Anthony Dosseto; Dr Megan Reich; Associate Professor Stefani Crabtree; Dr Brian Chase
Exchange networks and social resilience across the last deglaciation.
Exchange networks are a critical dimension of human social resilience, facilitating the movement of people and information in response to environmental change. This project will reveal how exchange networks enabled human societies to adapt to the rapidly rising sea levels and extreme climate forcing that brought about the modern (post-glacial) world. We will undertake a multi-isotope analysis of the world’s first mass-produced ornaments, generate new climate data, and create formal network models that will test whether exchange networks operated the same way in the deeper past as they do historically. The project will reveal the functional evolution of exchange networks, and provide an exemplar for archaeological studies of exchange. $741,226.00

DP260101451
Professor Kerrylee Rogers; Professor Neil Saintilan; Dr Christopher Owers; Associate Professor Sarah Hamylton; Professor Richard Lucas
Mangroves reveal history of Australia's forested shorelines.
This project aims to reveal the history of shoreline change and resilience of mangrove forests preserved in mangrove forest structure and substrates. In doing so, it seeks to reconcile the carbon benefits sea-level rise can provide with the risks sea-level rise poses to mangrove shorelines. A framework for integration of Earth observations with field and laboratory-based analyses will be proposed, and will complement a modelling approach that can be modified to generate both exploratory and real-world simulations based on future scenarios. This research seeks to centre Indigenous knowledges, provide confidence in forested shoreline resilience, and support investment in restoration, conservation, and blue carbon and nature repair markets. $681,778.00

The University of Sydney

DP260101656
Dr Amy Way; Associate Professor Timothy Barrows; Dr Michael Spate; Associate Professor Paul Hesse
Frozen frontiers: Exploring Australia's oldest high-altitude occupation.
Partnering with an Indigenous team, this project will examine the earliest evidence for high-altitude occupation in Australia to deliver new insights into cultural practices in cool-climate landscapes. High-altitude archaeology remains under-represented in Australia, limiting understandings of First Nations deep-time history. Expected outcomes include novel ice-age cultural and environmental data which will illuminate First Nations history and contribute new perspectives to global understandings of frozen mountain adaptation. Project benefits include increased cultural values recognition in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, strengthened research collaborations and employment opportunities for Indigenous partners. $1,107,778.00

The University of Newcastle

DP260102503
Dr Danielle Verdon-Kidd; Dr Josephine Brown; Emeritus Professor Silvia Frisia; Professor Dr Norbert Marwan; Dr Pauline Treble
Fingerprinting the Eemian as an analogue for future climate change.
The Eemian interglacial (ca. 120,000 years ago) serves as a key analogue for current and future warming, offering valuable insights into how the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ), a major rainfall driver of the South Pacific, may respond to future climate changes. This project will analyse cave stalagmites to generate high-resolution records of past rainfall and sea levels during the Eemian, paired with advanced climate modeling, to reveal how the SPCZ behaved during past warming events. The outcomes will improve our understanding of the impacts of rising temperatures and sea levels, helping to enhance disaster preparedness and climate resilience for Australia and its South Pacific neighbours. $628,909.00

The University of New England

DP260100630
Professor Martin Gibbs; Professor David Roberts; Professor Celmara Pocock; Dr Caitlin D'Gluyas; Dr Timothy Causer; Dr Brad Duncan; Mr John Sapienza; Ms Maree Evans
Australia’s First Colony: connected isolation on Norfolk Island 1778-1814.
The first settlement at Norfolk Island (1788-1814) is included in the Australian Convict World Heritage Listing. Yet Australia’s earliest colony has received little archaeological attention and is largely invisible in public imagining of our past. This project will deploy cutting-edge historical and archaeological techniques to generate novel insights into the socio-economic dynamics of this isolated outpost, revealing how its free, convict, and military settlers negotiated a unique environment and relations with mainland settlements and the British Empire. This new knowledge will inform conservation of first settlement sites, provide tools for interpretation, and enhance public appreciation of this pivotal period in Australia's history. $527,703.00

The Australian National University

DP260102123
Professor Simon Haberle; Associate Professor Janelle Stevenson; Professor Michael Bird; Dr Jamie Wood; Professor James Russell; Adjunct Professor Nathalie Dubois; Dr Janet Gagul; Professor Patrick Roberts
Deeptime History of Climate & Humans in the Most Diverse Ecosystem on Earth.
Tropical rainforests are coming under increasing threat from climate change and human population growth. This project brings together a multidisciplinary team of scientists to reconstruct the deep-time rainforest history of Australia’s closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, creating a new framework to understand the interplay between culture and biodiversity that stretch over thousands of years and build capability and understanding for future generations. The outcomes will fill a significant gap in our understanding of a critical part of the global climate system - the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool - that has driven the evolution of complex social-environmental systems in the most diverse ecosystem on earth. $787,069.00

DP260102865
Professor Jimin Yu; Professor Alexander Piotrowski; Professor David Thornalley; Dr Delia Oppo; Dr Shantong Sun
Causes of deglacial atmospheric CO2 changes: A novel bottom-up approach.
This project aims to resolve longstanding puzzles surrounding causes for past atmospheric CO2 variations through a novel bottom-up approach which constrains polar surface ocean conditions using deep-sea carbon cycle tracer reconstructions. Based on extensive new proxy data alongside models, our bottom-up approach will provide new insights into how the ocean operated to modulate atmospheric CO2 under diverse climate conditions during a critical but inadequately understood time interval known as the last deglaciation. This project is expected to markedly enhance mechanistic understanding of the global carbon cycle, with the benefit to improve our future climate predictability in face of rising atmospheric CO2. $473,750.00

DP260100362
Professor Geoffrey Clark; Dr Christian Reepmeyer
Urbanism and the Tongan Maritime State. The project’s aim is to investigate urbanism in the Tongan maritime state through a study of its earthwork architecture. An urbanism record for an Archaic state that survived for 650 years will provide significant new insights to the development of an important Pacific population centre. Expected outcomes include a high-resolution chronological record of an ancient neighbourhood in Oceania and quantitative indicators of urbanism at the state centre. Australia is one of the most urbanised societies in the world and historical records of urbanism in our region are important for understanding the factors that contribute to sustainable long-term settlement growth. $428,938.00

DP260100311
Associate Professor Duncan Wright; Professor Geoffrey Clark; Associate Professor Alison Crowther; Dr Stephanie Florin; Mr James Wheeler   
Malo to Mabo: A community-led archaeological history of the Meriam people.
This community-led project aims to archaeologically assess Malo Ra Gelar, a politico-religious system that empowered the Meriam people to challenge terra nullius. It seeks to redefine a nationally significant narrative by focusing, for the first time, on its deep historical roots. Expected outcomes include new insights into the peopling of Torres Strait through groundbreaking ancient DNA analysis, as well as a deeper understanding of agricultural emergence in Australia. Research should offer substantial benefits, deepening Meriam's connection to their heritage while broadening public understanding of First Nations religions and the development of Meriam culture from ancient times to a key moment in our nation's history. $767,398.00

Monash University

DP260101075
Dr Andrew Gunn; Associate Professor Kathryn Fitzsimmons; Dr Andrew Frierdich; Dr David Rubin
Evolution of aridity in the Red Centre expressed in linear dunes.
This project aims to understand how the linear dunes that cover one third of Australia’s surface record the history of aridity in the Red Centre over the last 125 thousand years. Correct interpretation of these records is highly significant as there are very few alternative ways to infer the environmental conditions during population of the continent and megafaunal extinction. Expected outcomes of this project are to reevaluate the history of aridity in Australia’s interior from the sand grains and layers inside the dunes by developing new computational and laboratory techniques. This project will benefit Australia by providing new, robust environmental context for late Quaternary history in the arid interior. $717,587.00

The University of Adelaide

DP260102411
Associate Professor Bastien Llamas; Dr Herawati Sudoyo; Dr Maximilian Larena; Associate Professor Guy Jacobs; Dr Hasanuddin Hasanuddin; Dr Pradiptajati Kusuma
Evaluating the biological impact of the Austronesian expansion.
The project aims to describe the biological impact of the Austronesian expansion (3,000–1,500 BCE), which is considered the biggest human demographic event in the Indo-Pacific region. Over 600,000 Australian residents are native Austronesian speakers (e.g. Indonesians, Filipinos, Malays, Polynesians). We will track genetic diversity in the Indonesian archipelago from 7,500 years ago to today to: i) unravel patterns of Austronesian demographic history, including migrations and admixture, and ii) uncover genetic adaptation to various environmental and cultural stressors. Benefits include the characterisation of the ancestral genetic makeup of Austronesian speakers and improve the genomic representation of some Australian minority communities. $864,362.00

DP260100124
Associate Professor Sally May; Dr Laura Rademaker; Dr Jessyca Hutchens; Professor Paul Tacon; Professor Joakim Goldhahn; Dr Luke Taylor
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. $685,028.00

Flinders University

DP260100609
Professor Gavin Prideaux; Dr Caroline Lehmann; Professor Caroline Stromberg; Professor Ian Moffat
Determining the ecological roles of Australia’s megafaunal marsupials.
This project aims to address the near-total lack of ecological knowledge on the unique large herbivores that became extinct in Australia by 40,000 years ago. By uniting global expertise in palaeontology, ecology and geochemistry, it will employ a novel range of methods to generate foundational knowledge on diets and distributions, transforming our view of large marsupial species and the structure of past communities. The project will shed light on environmental impacts of their extinction, and provide a framework for better understanding how modern ecosystems evolved. This is expected to better contextualise Australia’s vulnerability to large invasive species and fire, and to offer a more data-driven basis for resolving extinction causes. $790,564.00

University of Tasmania

DP260103947
Professor Mark Hovenden; Professor Adrienne Nicotra; Associate Professor Duanne White; Dr Elizabeth Wandrag
Protecting Australian high-country peaty soils by hydrological manipulation.
The peaty soils of Australia's high country are vital to ensuring future water security but are under threat from multiple factors. This project aims to produce the knowledge required to safeguard peaty soils in Australia's high country by using a multi-disciplinary approach combining vegetation function with the measurement of fluxes and storage pools of carbon and water, enhancing outputs from new infrastructure. Importantly, this project will assess how well subalpine peaty soils can be protected through relatively simple interventions. Expected outcomes include an enhanced ability to predict the resilience of the vital water-storage and filtration services provided by these systems as well as intervention options for improving these. $1,188,459.00

DP260101468
Associate Professor Jacqueline Halpin; Dr Taryn Noble; Associate Professor Alan Aitken; Dr Jacob Mulder; Dr Katharina Hochmuth
Assessing sea-level risk from the Aurora Subglacial Basin, East Antarctica.
This project aims to provide a new benchmark for ice loss in the East Antarctic Aurora Subglacial Basin, one of the biggest risks for multi-meter sea level rise in the 21st century. Expected outcomes are new geological observations linked to numerical models that define current ice sheet dynamics, and quantify the amount of ice sheet retreat during the warm Pliocene (3-3.3 million years ago), which is an analogue for climatic conditions expected within decades. This geological data and model integration will leverage recent multi-million dollar investments in Antarctic terrestrial and marine field campaigns, and resolve the uncertainty around multi-meter sea-level rise risk from ice sheet retreat a critical region of East Antarctica. $859,029.00

The University of Queensland

DP260103491
Professor Jian-xin Zhao; Dr Nicole Leonard; Professor Gregory Webb
Reconstructing climate and coral mortality in the Coral Sea Marine Park.
This cost-effective project aims to use high-precision U-Th dating of dead coral rubbles (samples already collected) and geochemical proxies from Porites cores to reconstruct past coral mortality events and their links to climate and environmental conditions, such as sea surface temperature, in the northern Coral Sea Marine Park (CSMP). Comparing timelines and causes of coral mortality and reef degradation with the Great Barrier Reef, where more is known from previous studies, will help identify and isolate global, regional, and local drivers of reef decline since European settlement in 1850s. Improved insights from the CSMP reefs with limited historical data will guide managers in developing targeted strategies for future reef protection. $557,141.00

Griffith University

DP260100912
Professor Lynley Wallis; Dr Jillian Huntley; Professor Heather Burke; Dr Yinika Perston; Assistant Professor Brandi MacDonald
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. $1,976,075.00

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