Charles Sturt University has increased its share of industry-linked grants, with a number of projects aimed to benefit regional Australia following the announcement of Australian Research Council funding for 2001.

CSU has more than doubled its value of Strategic Partnership with Industry, Research and Training (SPIRT) grants securing $793 008 in total for 10 successful grant proposals. This compares to just over $300 000 last year for some six research projects. Click here to see a summary of the CSU grants.

The successful grant applications cover a variety of disciplines including rural sociology, wine and food science, policing, biotechnology and socio-economics. They involve a broad range of partners including Telstra, the NSW Police, NSW Environment Protection Authority, NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation and Gordon Brothers Industries.

The largest grant of $228 000 is for a project to develop indicators of river health. Eight grants of $66 876 are spread across projects including women in fishing, optimising winery refrigeration, the social capital for natural resource management and a social analysis of water users. A $30 000 grant will assess the socio-economic change in the Coleambally Irrigation Area.

From the ARC large grant funding pool, CSU was successful in obtaining a grant for research in the ethics field titled Friendship and Morality.

CSU Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Kath Bowmer said this year's results partly reflect the benefits of an intensive professional development program being undertaken by the University to boost its research profile.

"We have done well in our areas of expertise and with continued support for academic staff, we expect next year's results to be even better.

"Our success with SPIRT grants also reflects the close relationship CSU has developed with industry and the nature of these projects shows a commitment to supporting many regional initiatives and broader social issues," Professor Bowmer said.

"The competition for these grants is tough, so success demonstrates our excellence and international standing in several focussed research areas."

• Women in fishing: Investigating women's contributions to the fishing industry sustainability - Margaret Alston, CSU Wagga with Bureau of Rural Sciences.
• Customer relationship management: Extending theory and Practice - Denise Jarratt, CSU Bathurst with Telstra.
• Development of rhizobacterial seed treatment for the induction of systemic resistance to blackleg and other seeding diseases of canoloa - Gavin Ash, CSU Wagga with Seed Grain and Biotechnology.
• The development of a procedure to optimise the parameters of a winery refrigeration system - Trevor Delves, CSU Wagga with Gordon Brothers Industries.
• Building community capacity and social capital for natural resource management - Ian Gray, CSU Wagga with Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
• Applications of RGA's, AFLP, Microsatellites and RAPD to develop Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) for Cyclaneusma minus in Pinus radiata - Morley Muralitharan, CSU Wagga with NSW State Forests and DNA fingerprinting at CSU, RMIT and Swinburne.
• Catching recidivist offenders: Improving crime detection rates by utilising criminal modus operandi and geographical profiling - Jerry Ratcliffe, CSU Goulburn with NSW Police Service.
• Development indicators of river health: to examine the effect of flow variability on biofilm productivity and subsequent biofilm-grazer interactions to determine directional responses of change in relation to flow regime - Alistar Robertson, CSU Wagga with NSW EPA and NSW DLWC.
• Beyond economic rationalism in rural Australia: A new approach to socio-economic change in the Coleambally Irrigation Area -John Spriggs, CSU Wagga with Coleambally Irrigation Area.
• Improving water management in NSW irrigated agriculture through social analysis of water users - Frank Vanclay, CSU Wagga with NSW Agriculture.