Brainwave Seed Fund
Sparking collaborations that change how we understand the brain.
Purpose:
To catalyse innovative research and foster new collaborations, we are establishing a competitive Seed Grant Scheme comprising four grants of $5,000 each. These small, targeted grants will provide investigators with the resources needed to generate preliminary data, explore novel research directions, establish interdisciplinary partnerships, and develop proof-of-concept studies that position researchers to establish a more developed high impact research program in the Centre. The scheme will particularly encourage early- and mid-career researchers and facilitate collaborations across disciplines and nodes. By investing in high-potential pilot projects, the Brainwave Seed Fund will strengthen the Centre’s research pipeline and build capacity within our research community.
The 2026 Centre workshop is designed to foster new collaborations and identify innovative research directions across the Centre.
How it will work:
The Quantum Brain Toolbox Workshop
The workshop is about taking the next step in how we work together – moving beyond describing what we can do and starting to demonstrate it.
In the morning we will have lab demos from Itia, Warwick and Halina’s groups; in the afternoon we will have talks from my, Jiajia and David’s groups. Finally, we will finish with a collaboration session where participants start the discussions on their collaborative grant applications. We’ll be working together to develop collaborative project pitches for the Brainwave Seed Fund scheme. These aren’t expected to be fully formed grant applications by the end of the day. Instead, they’re an opportunity to identify exciting ideas, build new teams, and begin collaborations. The grants will be due the following week and are very short forms that should be a minimal burden for researchers.
For those that are providing lab demos – please tell us about what your technology can and can’t do, so that participants can start to think about how it could be applied to a biological question or how it could be further advanced.
For afternoon presenters – please provide some background on your research questions and findings but let us know what you would love to measure but don’t yet know how to. Hopefully, this will help us to find new ways to work together to answer bigger questions.
Overall, be curious, ask questions, introduce yourself to someone you haven’t met before, and think broadly about how your expertise could complement someone else’s.
For more information:
Please see 2026 Brainwave Seed Fund Application Form and Brainwave Seed Fund Assessment Rubric.
The Brainwave Seed Fund grants will be launched at the workshop on Wednesday 19th August and will be due by 5pm on Friday 28th August by email to: lezanne@uow.edu.au
If you have any questions, please reach out to Lezanne.
Expected completion within 12 months.