The Monash Warwick Alliance has recently announced over £131,000 for six ventures that will facilitate deep collaborations between staff and students from both universities.

Development funding was awarded for a major partnership between Monash and Warwick’s Particle Physics groups. Together they will build improved models of complex proton collisions at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. The groups will also confront these models with experimental constraints with data from the ATLAS experiment. This partnership will be led by Dr Sinead Farrington from Department of Physics and Dr Peter Skands, who will join Monash in October.

Associate Professor Kylie Gray from the Monash Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and Professor Richard Hastings from Warwick's Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research have been granted seed funding for ‘MIND-IT’. This program will research the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders, and the psychosocial wellbeing of their families.

Seed funding has also been granted to Dr Zhe Liu from the Monash Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Dr David Quigley from the Department of Physics. Together they will investigate crystal structures of oxide materials using a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance method, supplemented by quantum chemistry calculations.

Dr Sergiy Shelyag from the Monash School of Mathematical Sciences and Professor Valery Nakariakov from the Warwick Department of Physics have received seed funding. They will advance knowledge of solar atmospheric magnetic connectivity through joint research and educational activities conducted by the solar physics teams at Monash and Warwick.

A Global Cultural Economy Lab will be established with seed funding to serve as an international research and teaching platform in collaboration with Shanghai Jiaotong University. The project will be led by Professor Justin O’Connor from the Monash School of Media, Film and Journalism and Dr Jonathan Vickery from Warwick’s Centre for Cultural Policy Studies.

The Alliance’s support for student-led activity continues with the Monash Warwick Formula Student Alliance. Monash Motorsport will to travel to the UK later this month for industry visits and to compete in the Formula UK student competition.

Alliance Academic Vice-President, Professor Andrew Coats, congratulated the academic staff and students who were successful in the first round of funding for 2014. Professor Coats said:

The projects supported will accelerate our complimentary research efforts in physics, mental health, engineering and economics, while also growing the skills and capabilities of the staff and students involved.”

Monash Warwick Alliance funding scheme

The Monash Warwick Alliance funding scheme encourages academic staff and current students to collaborate and achieve results beyond those that can be accomplished by each institution individually. Since 2012, The Alliance has funded 40 projects, initiatives and joint appointments across all faculties that have deepened the collaborative partnership between Monash and Warwick.

The next round of Monash Warwick Alliance funding closes 10 November 2014. For more information about funding opportunities visit the Monash-Warwick Alliance intranet.