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Research funding boost for RMIT
Boosting Indigenous entrepreneurship in Victoria and improving housing for remote
Indigenous communities are among seven RMIT University projects awarded $2.3
million in grants by the Australian Research Council.
Across Australia, RMIT was awarded the seventh highest level of funding in the
second round of ARC Linkage Projects 2008. In Victoria, RMIT was third behind the
universities of Monash and Melbourne.
Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Margaret Gardner AO, said the
University’s strong collaborative links with industry had helped it succeed in the latest
ARC funding round.
“Our researchers have made significant efforts in working with our industry partners
to secure the matching funding required for these Linkage grants,” Professor
Gardner said.
“RMIT continues to build on its reputation for engaging with industry and undertaking
research that is practical, relevant and makes a difference to the community.”
Chief Investigator of the Indigenous entrepreneurship project, Associate Professor
Adela McMurray, said researchers would work with the Koori Business Network to
find ways of reconciling Indigenous community values with mainstream business
practices.
“The three-year project is wide-ranging and hands-on, comparing about 400
Indigenous businesses across Victoria,” Associate Professor McMurray, the
Assistant Dean, Research and Innovation, in RMIT’s School of Management, said.
“Indigenous entrepreneurship in Australia is currently in decline but through the
promotion of culturally-sensitive, community based economic development, a
renaissance is a realistic possibility.”
Other RMIT projects funded until 2011 and 2012 include:
the development of construction and management practices to meet the need for
affordable and sustainable housing in remote Indigenous communities;
working on an effective vaccine against a fatal respiratory disease in pigs, which
each year costs Australian industry millions of dollars in lost production; and,
developing technologies to better predict cyclones.
For interviews: Associate Professor Adela McMurray, (03) 9925 4946 or 0419 829
893.
For general media enquiries: RMIT University Media and Communications,
Gosia Kaszubska, (03) 9925 3176 or 0417 510 735.
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June, 2008
NEWS 
