2021 AFRAN Laureates!

The AFRAN association supports every year initiatives designed to federate, build and develop the Franco-Australian scientific communities around research and innovation areas of common interest to both countries. In 2022, 6 projects proposed by AFRAN members will be supported.

Youth Perspectives on the Future of the French Pacific Territories

The objective of this project is to develop youths’ interest and engagement in the Pacific-Australia region. It proposes a two-part webinar series, focussing on the current and emerging challenges for New Caledonia and French Polynesia. The webinars will be conducted in French with youth representatives from the respective islands, as well Australia, to share their thoughts and insights. The events will be coordinated by the Pacific-Australia Youth Association.

Australia-France Endometriosis Pain Visualisation Project

Endometriosis is a disease that causes debilitating uterine pain. It is however little known due to the lack of communication about its symptoms. This project proposes a scientific and artistic approach, to study communication in France and Australia around the symptoms of this disease, concerning in particular the description and visualization of the associated pain. This project proposes to set up two workshops (in Melbourne, Australia; and in Paris, France), as well as an artist residency in Marnay sur Seine (France). It brings together various partners: the Marnay sur Seine botanical garden, the French and Australian organizations on endometriosis EndoFrance and QENDO, the General Sir John Monash Foundation and the Women’s Health organization of Victoria, as well as researchers from the Universities of Monash, Griffith and the Australian National University.

Bushfire cross-sectoral exchange of knowledge

Led by the AFRAN leader of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards community, this project aims to accompany in Australia a French delegation of researchers, firefighters and industrial representatives, to allow exchanges between the two countries. INRAE and CSIRO researchers will discuss their research on fire behaviour, particularly in peri-urban environments, characterized by the complex influences of human behaviour, socio-economic developments, climate, and natural resources. The Southern Corsican Fire Brigade (SIS 2A) will meet with their Australian counterparts to better understand the mechanisms of public alert and fire management. Industry representatives will follow these meetings to understand the Australian context and potential Australian market.

French/Australian Infectious Disease symposium

This project will bring together French and Australian leaders in the field of infectious disease to present their research and lessons learned from the Covid and HIV epidemics. This symposium will be an opportunity to demonstrate the excellence of French and Australian research and to bring together a large community of researchers and AFRAN members, in order to strengthen collaborations in this field. Researchers from the Doherty Institute, the Pasteur Institute, and the French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis and Emerging Infectious Diseases will participate in the symposium.

Constraining interacting dark matter with strong lensing models

This project takes us to the heart of the matter of galaxy clusters, to explore in particular the interaction between dark matter and electrons. By combining the results of gravitational lens models describing the Buffalo galaxy cluster, with X-ray measurements from this cluster, it should be possible to estimate the probability of the interaction dark matter-electron, and learn more about this dark matter. This project brings together researchers from the University of Sydney, the Southern European Observatory (Chile), the University of Durham (UK), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and the University of Geneva (Switzerland).

From Paris to Perth: Javier Torres, choreographer, and the Sleeping Beauty

This project creates a first link between Javier Torres, a French choreographer of Mexican roots, and the West Australian Ballet Company. On the occasion of the launch of Sleeping Beauty, which he choreographed with the Western Australia Company, Javier Torres will share his international vision of choreography, his research in the field of ballet pedagogy, including both psychological and medical approaches. This project will highlight an original cooperation that had to reinvent itself with health restrictions, and culminates in this major cultural event.