Three researchers from the Life Course Centre community have secured Australian Research Council (ARC) grants to address major national challenges and opportunities.
The ARC announced more than $344 million in funding to support research projects through the 2026 Future Fellowship scheme, including those of Chief Investigator Professor Agnieszka Tymula, Centre Member Professor Sally Gainsbury, and Centre Affiliate Associate Professor Brendan Churchill.
The 2026 Future Fellowships round represents the largest investment in a Future Fellowships round to date. It will enable researchers to build their research programs, develop new ideas and contribute to Australia’s research capability and future prosperity.
Professor Agnieszka Tymula
University of Sydney
Neuroeconomics of Risk and Delay: Redefining Theory and Improving Decisions.
This project will study how the brain’s limits combined with economic conditions affect people’s economic decisions. The outcomes will provide evidence from controlled experiments for new foundations for economic theory and generate practical insights to improve policies on savings, ageing, obesity, workplace safety, and climate action.
Professor Sally Gainsbury
University of Sydney
Building Financial Resilience Against Manipulative Digital Design.
Australians’ ability to make considered choices online is increasingly undermined by manipulative “dark nudge” designs that exploit cognitive biases and drive overspending. This project addresses this pressing issue by generating new knowledge on how different consumer groups respond to digital dark nudges, informing the design and testing of behaviourally informed, personalised interventions.
Associate Professor Brendan Churchill
The University of Melbourne
Making it Count: Closing the Data-Action Gap for Global Gender Equality.
Across the world, governments rely on data to advance workplace gender equality, yet progress remains uneven. This project will transform how gender equality is measured and realised by showing how reporting systems can move from mechanisms of compliance to catalysts for reform. Through comparative research across Australia, France and the United Kingdom, it will generate a transformative framework for gender-data governance globally.