Grant Success and Research Impact

$2.5m grant for innovative building energy management system

Scientia Prof. Deo Prasad, Associate Prof. Lan Ding and Dr. William Craft, along with colleagues from UNSW Engineering, secured a $2.5 million grant from the Trailblazer Program, industry partners, and Dubbo Regional Council to support the realisation of net-zero energy buildings in regional Australia.

The research will develop and build an innovative next-generation hybrid energy management system to transform how buildings consume, store, and distribute energy, improving efficiency and sustainability while lowering costs. The system will integrate multiple energy sources, including rooftop solar, battery storage and grid power, and using predictive analytics optimise storing excess solar energy in batteries during the off-peak season. The first prototype of the system is set to be installed in a Dubbo Regional Council building, serving as a “living lab” to showcase functionality in real-world conditions.

Enhancing collaboration for better micromobility infrastructure

Dr. Mike Harris has been awarded a three-year ARC Early Career Industry Fellowship, with grant funding of $365,000, for research entitled ‘Project Delivery Harmonisation for Urban Micromobility Infrastructure’.

Dr. Harris’ research will improve the delivery of micromobility infrastructure in Australia by enabling more effective collaboration and consensus-building between governments, practice, and communities, using participatory research. The project, a collaboration with industry partner Vivendi Cities, will bridge the gap between strategic policy and on-the-ground delivery by creating a micromobility project delivery framework and navigation tool to guide successful and timely infrastructure implementation.

$1.2m grant to establish the Australian Smart Environmental Observatory

A team led by Scientia Prof. Deo Prasad, Scientia Prof. Matt Santamouris, A/Prof. Lan Ding, Prof. Philip Oldfield and A/Prof. Riccardo Paolini have been awarded $1.2million in the 2026 ARC LIEF round to establish the Australian Smart Environmental Observatory.

The research, undertaken in partnership with the University of Canberra, RMIT, University of Sydney, ANU and NSW DCCEEW, will create a national network of sensors across Australia to better measure urban heat, air quality and noise. The Observatory will create 14 resilient city hubs, monitoring environment exposure in different urban and regional settings to provide new datasets and protocols for researchers and policymakers across Australia.

UNSW opens the Housing Analytics Lab

In 2025 UNSW opened a new state-of-the-art Housing Analytics Lab, led by the City Futures Research Group, in Sydney’s Tech Central, with NSW Premier Chris Minns, NSW Minister for Housing and Homelessness Rose Jackson and NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully officially opening the facility.  

The lab is funded by a $1million grant by the Office of the NSW Chief Scientist, and includes partnerships with Commonwealth Bank, Mirvac, NSW Tenants’ Union, National Shelter, AURIN and Housing Australia. It provides centralised housing data and dashboards from different sectors used to develop breakthroughs to problems like affordability, the shortfall of social homes and the stifled development pipeline.

Bushfire AI improves our understanding of wildfire behaviour

BushFire AI, led by the Geospatial Research Innovation Development (GRID) group, has developed an integrated, physics-informed generative AI system to enable faster and more effective bushfire understanding, prediction, and response by simulating realistic, scenario-based fire spread across large-scale 3D urban and natural environments.

At its core is a lightweight 3D Voxel Wildfire Simulator that models fire propagation using LiDAR-derived voxel representations, fuel classifications, and physics-based heat-transfer processes, including convection, radiation, and conduction in both vertical and horizontal directions at metre-level resolution. Tested across multiple locations in NSW, it generates high-fidelity synthetic data to train advanced generative AI surrogates. A 3D Transformer–based model predicts future fire states 10–100 times faster, enabling near-real-time, large-scale fire propagation to support emergency response, planned preventive burning, and risk management. 

The project is developed in collaboration with the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council, Fire and Rescue NSW and the NSW Rural Fire Service.

Two year inquiry calls for a shift in how Australia prepares for and responds to disasters

A new landmark research inquiry led by Prof. David Sanderson has called for a fundamental shift in how Australia prepares for and responds to disasters – beginning with housing policy and local government empowerment.

The inquiry report, entitled Housing policy and disaster: better coordinating actors, responses and data, was released in July, 2025. Conducted in collaboration with researchers from RMIT and Curtin University, the two-year-long inquiry draws on policy analysis, literature reviews and case studies from seven post-disaster recovery events across four states. It also included insights from community members, government officials, and industry leaders. A central finding of the report is that local government is uniquely positioned to lead disaster resilience efforts but is currently under-resourced, under-supported, and under-recognised in national disaster frameworks.

Helping older people make informed decisions on home modifications

Emeritus Prof. Catherine Bridge was awarded $232,000 from the Department of Health and Aged Care to extend the work of the Home Modification Information Clearinghouse (HMinfo).

The Clearinghouse is an information service that helps people make informed choices about modifications to their home, aimed at improving safety, ease of access and comfort for older people and those with disabilities.

The Home Modification Information Clearinghouse (HMInfo) develops evidence-based home modification knowledge to enhance the independence and wellbeing of older people and those with disabilities.

Researchers develop and install innovative 3D printed reef structures

A UNSW team including Prof. Hank Haeusler, Dr. Yannis Zavoleas, Charlotte Firth and Louis Lamont, have developed and installed innovative 3D-printed reef structures – called BioShelters – to help reestablish oyster populations around Sydney Harbour. The project, supported by funding from Landcom and the NSW Government, applied advanced computational methods to design and fabricate this new coastal infrastructure.

Each BioShelter is made from a 3D-printed recycled plastic mould and filled with a concrete mix that includes crushed oyster shells. They are approximately six metres by two metres and 90 centimetres in height, segmented into 25 individual panels. In 2025 the Bioshelters were installed at the new Sydney Fish Market in Glebe, an area where natural habitats have been lost due to urban development.

Realising retrofit in apartment buildings

Prof. Hazel Easthope and Dr. Edgar Liu from the City Futures Research Centre, along with colleagues from UNSW’s Collaboration on Energy and Environmental Markets, were awarded an $845,000 grant by the CRC RACE 2030 to identify, model and realise retrofit opportunities for apartments and provide resources and policy insights to drive sustainable upgrades.

The unique difficulties of retrofitting apartments means that they have ended up in the ‘too hard’ basket when it comes to both policy and practice. This project brings together apartment building governance, renewable energy and strata law to provide resources to help property owners make a case for retrofits and evidence to support regulatory and behaviour change.

Creating opportunities for women in the construction industry

The UNSW Women in Construction Project, funded by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Office for Women, empowers women to thrive in the construction industry.

The project has now engaged over 9,000 female high-school students and community members to raise awareness of diverse career pathways in construction, awarded 18 scholarships, and mentored 70+ women in construction. More than 40 women have gained work experience through internships, while 70+ were upskilled for leadership roles.

Mapping rental vulnerability to support Australian renters

Scientia A/Prof. Chris Martin and Dr. Caitlin Buckle, with colleagues from the University of Sydney, were awarded $326,000 through the ARC Linkage scheme to measure and map rental vulnerability in Australia, and to document its drivers and lived experience.

Through innovate methodologies combining narrative-based qualitative data, quantitative rental system datasets, together with digital mapping, this project will generate an Australian Rental Vulnerability Index (RVI) and advance our understanding of rental vulnerability’s complex multi-dimensional nature and spatial distribution. The RVI will provide a powerful publicly accessible tool for partner tenant organisations as they plan and deliver services and advocate for renters across Australia.