New Melbourne-Toronto funding program supports research collaboration

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A person standing outside wearing dark jeans and black sneaker on one leg and pajama pants and a Yoda-shaped slipper on their other leg

Balancing competing priorities during a pandemic is one of the research projects awarded funding.

How parents balance work and family time in a pandemic era, developing new regenerative therapies for hearing and balance disorders and exploring energy harvesting and storage in remote communities.

These are just three of the research projects that will share $A150 000 under the inaugural funding round of the University of Melbourne – University of Toronto Joint Research Program.

The program was established in 2020 to support collaborative research initiatives. Seed funding helps researchers at the two universities visit each other to start and extend their research collaborations. This financial support also enables researchers to make joint proposals to other funding sources for the next phase of their research.

Projects funded include:

  • Changing times: parents' re-evaluations of work-family boundaries and time allocations in a pandemic era
    Associate Professor Leah Ruppanner (Arts), with Professor Melissa Milkie (University of Toronto)
  • Using human inner ear organs to develop new regenerative therapies for hearing and balance disorders
    Associate Professor Bryony Nayagam (Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences), with Associate Professor Alain Dabdoub (University of Toronto)
  • Strengthening antibiotic discovery at the University of Melbourne and University of Toronto
    Dr Sacha Pidot (Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences), with Professor Justin Nodwell (University of Toronto)
  • The technical study of Bernini’s bronzes: art history, conservation, and material science
    Dr Jonathan Kemp (Arts), with Professor Evonne Levy (University of Toronto)
  • Energy harvesting and storage in remote communities
    Dr Wallace Wong (Science), with Professor Dwight Seferos (University of Toronto)
  • City-science workshops: Tree removal or loss as experimental opportunities to accurately measure the social and ecological benefits of urban trees
    Associate Professor Stephen Livesley (Science), with Professor Tenley Conway (University of Toronto)

Image: Ayesh Rathnayake/Unsplash

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