Australian Academy of Science announces funding for short-term visits and infrastructure use
The Australian Academy of Science has launched a programme of grants to support Ukrainian researchers affected by the war.
The Ukraine-Australia Research Fund is divided into two streams: funding for short-term research visits and funding for the use of Australian facilities and infrastructure.
Under the second stream, Ukrainian researchers can send their samples to any facilities covered by Australia’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, with the results returned to the Ukrainian institute. Funding covers the cost of sending samples and the cost of testing and analysing the samples.
Military research is excluded from both funding streams.
Ten-point plan
The grants are being funded by an A$800,000 donation from the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, announced in late 2022.
At the time, the academy signed up to an international “10-point action plan” put together by learned academies around the world. The plan includes supporting researchers through various administrative concessions, establishing joint funding programmes and providing research facilities to compensate for those destroyed by the war.
The academy said in 2022 that it “condemns in the harshest possible terms the unprovoked and unlawful military aggression by Russia”.
The infrastructure stream is open for applications until 31 May, and the travel grants until 7 June. A second round is planned for later in the year.