News and views

A generous donation to the Academy from the University of Queensland will continue to support female early-career researchers working in the Earth sciences.

The Academy’s national speaker series aims to deliver science around Australia in an engaging, accessible and positive way. Since August, the Academy has delivered Making Better Humans with Polymers in Wollongong, Brisbane and Adelaide, with audiences taken on a polymer journey by Dr Katherine Locock, Dr Georgina Such, Professor Martina Stenzel, Professor Gordon Wallace, Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik and Professor Peter Murphy.

Australian science and technology is well placed to seize opportunities to commercialise at home and abroad, according to experts who gathered in Sydney in November.

The Academy recently hosted a Primary Connections showcase professional learning workshop at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). This was the first workshop of its type, with key stakeholders in STEM education observing part of the workshop and engaging with the 30 primary school educators in attendance.

The Academy has awarded more than $200,000 to a number of high-quality research projects and conferences, generously supported by donations to the Academy. In 2018 these will, among other things, fund cutting-edge Australian marine, soil and plant biology research and help the survival of some of Australia’s endangered species. There is also support for specialist conferences on subjects such as the rapid collapse of ecosystems in a changing world.

A meeting of representatives of some of the world’s major brain research projects, hosted by the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra, has made a declaration to establish an International Brain Initiative.

Multiple Academy videos have gone viral internationally on Facebook since the launch of the Academy’s new daily commitment to answer everyday questions and introduce people to science.

The winners this year of Australia’s second Falling Walls Lab, Dr Vini Gautam from the Australian National University and Dr Mortaza Rezae from Curtin University, represented Australia at the international event in November. The Berlin event was attended by 100 finalists and winners from the 49 international Falling Walls Labs held during the year.

The December 2017 issue (Volume 28 Number 2) of the Academy’s journal, Historical Records of Australian Science, is now available. This issue contains five articles on the history of Australian science, four biographical memoirs of Fellows, and a selection of book reviews.