The Awards recognise the exceptional performance of our professional staff and their important contribution to the ongoing success of Macquarie.

Both individual staff and teams can be nominated in the following four Award categories:

1. Outstanding Service
2. Collaboration and Connection
3. Innovation and Process Improvement
4. Leadership Excellence.

Winners in each category will receive a certificate from the Vice-Chancellor at a celebratory event in November, and $4000 to spend towards professional development or improvements to their working environment.

Nominations can be submitted by all University staff and students, and will be forwarded to the manager of the nominated staff member or team for endorsement.

Already have a colleague or colleagues in mind? Share their good work today before nominations close Monday 31 August.

Learn more about the Awards and nominate now.

Announced last Friday by the Minister for Health Sussan Ley, a Macquarie research team led by Associate Professor Ian Blair has received a $6.37 million grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for dementia research.

At Macquarie, the grant will fund research into the biological origins of familial and sporadic frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and motor neurone disease (MND). These diseases overlap and are thought to share common biological origins.

“Our project will seek to identify the origins of FTD, which is the second most common form of presenile dementia, and how it is linked pathologically and genetically to MND, a fatal neurodegenerative disease affecting motor neurones,” said Associate Professor Blair.

Associate Professor Blair says recent breakthrough discoveries have identified common genetic causes for FTD and MND.

“We aim to identify new genetic mutations responsible for inherited (familial) FTD/MND,” he said. “Importantly, we will also identify genetic variation that predisposes to sporadic FTD/MND – as part of Project MinE, the largest global initiative ever established to solve the puzzle of sporadic MND.”

The goal of Project MinE is to sequence the whole genomes of 15,000 MND patients and will be the first study of its type in the world to provide the best opportunity for discovery of causative gene variation in sporadic MND/FTD.

The research will be based at Macquarie and is a collaboration between the University of Wollongong, Neuroscience Research Australia and Macquarie University Hospital.

“Macquarie plays a central role in MND research, using the expertise of five neurobiology teams together to build a new collaborative research program focusing upon MND and related neurodegenerative diseases,” he said.

“While there is currently no cure for dementia, Australia is a world leader in the disease’s research and progress towards effective treatments,” Ms Ley said.

The government’s $200 million boost to dementia research will contribute to the World Dementia Council’s target of achieving a five-year delay in the onset of dementia by 2025.

The broad goal of the PACE Development Grant Scheme is to encourage the expansion of the number of appropriate opportunities for students to engage in PACE in local and regional settings.

For details regarding the funding parameters, eligibility and selection criteria and application information, please download the PACE Development Grant Scheme 2015 Guidelines and complete the online application form which are available from the PACE Website.

Applications should be lodged by 5pm Thursday 27 August via the online survey form.

The project seeks to understand how communities mobilise in Melanesia through the integration of digital media, mobile phones and music. Melanesia consists of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and West Papua.

Dr Crowdy explains: “Music is a critical part of social justice movements and communication in Melanesia. Recently, mobile phones have become central tools for sharing and engaging with music.”

This project plans to draw on new uses of mobile phones for creating, disseminating and listening to music to transform social, cultural and industrial practices in Melanesia.

“We seek to understand how Melanesians mobilise through music using new technology; we will then analyse and apply this through the development and testing of more relevant software for such communities, and foster creative networks around these apps and ideas,” said Dr Crowdy.

Dr Crowdy is leading the team, however he would like to acknowledge social justice scholar Camellia Webb-Gannon (UWS) who “…initiated the idea of putting together a team of ethnomusicologists, social justice scholars and activists, a digital ethnographer and partner NGOs to connect these elements.”

Other researchers involved with the project include: Heather Horst (RMIT), Michael Webb (USyd), Jason MacLeod (Further Arts, Vanuatu), David Bridie (Wantok Music Foundation), Thomas Dick (Wantok Music Foundation) and Monika Stern (National Centre for Scientific Research, France).

Learn more about Dr Crowdy.

The following submission deadlines apply for 2015:

Innovation and Scholarship Program (ISP) Grants: 2 April 2015 (Round 1) and 24 August 2015 (Round 2)

Extension Grants (new): 2 April 2015 (Round 1) and 24 August 2015 (Round 2)

Strategic Priority Grants (new): 24 May

Strategic Infrastructure Scheme (MQSIS): 23 November

NOTE: Faculty / Office deadlines may apply, and will be earlier than University deadlines. It is recommended interested staff contact their relevant Faculty / Office Learning and Teaching staff.

Learning and Teaching Grants information session
Learn more about grant schemes and the new portal for submissions. It will also be a forum to meet other staff interested in learning and teaching projects and research.

When: Tuesday 17 February
Time: 10.30am – 11.30am
Where: E6A, 131

Register now.

News about Learning and Teaching Awards programming in 2015 will follow next month. In the interim, the L&T Grants and Awards calendar of deadlines and events can be imported into your Google calendar.

For more information contact Laura Heron (laura.heron@mq.edu.au) or call ext. 1089.