Feeling Seedy

Some award-competing entries for an internal grant scheme

I recently came across a brilliant internal grant scheme here at the University of Melbourne. Brilliant because

a) it provides seed funding, which I like because it lets you explore half-baked ideas without the pressure of committing large resources over a long period of time

b) it is all about research impact i.e. making a splash outside the ivory tower, supposedly the dang raison d’etre of me and my blog here

c) it was really, really easy to apply (unlike that blasted Future Fellowship application). Naturally I spammed the hell out of them with some half-baked ideas (sorry, grant administrators).

The universal symbol of an idea - the lightbulb (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Much to my delight, one of my entries got up, and I am currently drawing up plans for its implementation in the first half of 2024. Here are the ideas I submitted to the scheme:

1. Centre for Government Science. I’ve already written about this. The update is that I recently sat in on a high-ish level meeting at uni about the reimagining of the Melbourne School of Government and they didn’t immediately rule out including some kind of government science aspect to the newly imagined entity.

2. GovTracker. What are the public resources brought to bear on the stated goals for the major issues of our day and how effective are they? Tracking progress is really hard. Even though governments try, there are very few areas where commitments and achievements are tracked critically and communicated well (an exception: emissions reductions). I’ve been chatting with a fellow Westpac Scholar Evelyn Lambeth about some kind of creative and informal project in this area.

3. What's Possible? Our knowledge is expanding exponentially, but failing to keep up with our even more rapidly growing power and the complexity it has wrought. If ever there was a time for good – and big – ideas about how to live well with the planet and each other, this it it. Yet too often we are prisoners of the moment, held back by the status quo and ‘the way things are done round here.’ This is a project for exploring alternative, real world approaches to different public policy issues, wherever we can find them. I’m talking local, state, national, international, intergalactic, you name it. I’m imagining some kind of platform - let’s call it Comparipedia - that allows you to easily look up issues and compare how different countries and jurisdictions do them along whatever axes of comparison make sense. This was kind of the topic of the Churchill Fellowship I almost got this year (‘Learning from approaches to wildfire risk modelling and communication in Southern and Western Europe’). [Update: I forgot to mention that I trialled this idea with another Westpac Scholar, Roxane Foulser-Piggott at FreddyMatch]

4. Crow Flies. How do we present remote location information (eg for a bushfire) in a streetview / VR perspective? How can we tell where something is relative to us, as the crow flies? This one is really about spatially challenged people like myself who struggle to relate what it shows on the map with what they can see with their eyes. I’m imagining an active fire somewhere over the horizon, or obscured by terrain, that we can easily pinpoint in relation to local landmarks like trees, buildings, train stations, shops and the like. I can imagine a new home owner (obviously a billionaire) inspecting a property and enlisting this tool from the backyard - not while a fire is raging, but checking the location of previous fires in the vicinity. There’s nothing actually firey about this idea and really any time you’re headed somewhere it might make a nice toggle from the top down mapview.

5. Very Animated. How do we bridge the gap between outstanding science and public awareness and understanding? Not long after I pitched this, the university announced a prize for researchers who could communicate their research in a short video (I don’t think there was a connection, other than that we both thought it was a good idea). What could be more appealing than a short video? Why, a short animated video!

6. Audio Abstracts. How do we make it easier for scientists to keep up to date with the literature? Many people find time to listen to podcasts, why not whack in a spoken word version of a journal article abstract or two here and there? There are some technical and legal hurdles to clear here, but I would totally try a service like this. Maybe.

7. Centre for Slow Science. I can’t say I’m an expert on this movement but I’m quite slow and tired so this sounds like a brilliant idea to me. If a smart university out there wants to attract researchers, they should definitely set this up.

8. Climate Change Near Me. I still don’t get why we don’t have an app that lets you easily look up climate change impacts and observations in your neighbourhood. Come on people, how hard can it be!

9. Wildfire Evidence Briefs. How do we translate complex and evolving scientific knowledge about wildfire into clear guidance for decision makers and the public? Health and medicine has a decent track record in synthesising and summarising complex information on specific issues for health professionals - and on occasion even admitting the existence of vast swathes of ignorance. Can we learn from them and try this in wildfire? This is the one that got up! Short and punchy summaries on contentious future fire issues, what could be simpler?

What about you, dear reader, got any brilliant ideas that just need a little kick along with some seed funding?