Digital Agriculture PhD Supplementary Scholarship

Each year ANU College of Science (CoS) and ANU College of Engineering, Computing & Cybernetics (CECC) may offer a limited number of awards known as the Digital Agriculture PhD Supplementary Scholarship (Award).

The objective of this Award is to provide funding to support outstanding candidates to pursue a PhD program in science, engineering or technology at ANU, where the focus of their research is on a collaborative project between CSIRO and ANU in the field of information science relevant to agriculture.

Funding for this top-up award has been provided by CSIRO’s Data61 – Australia’s leading data innovation group. Their mission is to create Australia’s data driven future by building the world’s leading data-focused research and innovation powerhouse.

Digital agriculture is ag done differently. What does that mean?

In the future, agriculture will have to address new and complex challenges. Technology, and particularly emerging digital capability, impacts how things are done across the entire value chain. In order to ensure food security and sustainability for the future, agriculture needs experts in traditional farming practice, as well as experts in new technologies.

If you plan to do a PhD in plant sciences, synthetic biology, biochemistry, ecology, environmental studies, robotics, AI, machine learning, data modelling, remote sensor technology, or any other field based at CoS or CECC, this Award may be suitable.

This is a unique opportunity to work with some of the best minds across CSIRO and ANU, and play an important role in the future of digital agriculture.

Scholarship details

Supplementary Scholarship of $15,000 per annum, (fortnightly payments). Duration of 3.5 years. One six month extension may be possible with approval.

Research Support Allowance (with approval) $5,000 to fund incidentals including professional development and research-related travel.

Project topics

• Nutrient balance strategies to build soil carbon in farming systems
• Developing cutting-edge tools for 3D reconstruction of plant architecture
• Sensing the next step change in water productivity in dryland agriculture 
• AI-powered monitoring of livestock health and welfare using multimodal sensor data 
• Large language model (LLM) enhanced digital representation of smell for food manufacturing 

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply for this Award students must have applied for, or be the recipient of, a base PhD scholarship from ANU and be applying for or undertaking one of the approved projects above.

More information about eligibility to apply for the award is available here.

The Conditions of Award document is available here.

How to apply

To apply for this Award candidates must first be accepted for an approved project topic and apply for, or hold, an ANU base scholarship. To apply, candidates must:

• email [email protected] to express their interest in being considered for one or more of these projects – the email should outline the project(s) of interest, request supervisor details for the chosen topic(s) and request an expression of interest (EOI) form. This should be done well ahead of the EOI due date;
• make contact with the project supervisors to discuss the research;
• have obtained agreement from both the CSIRO and ANU supervisors to supervise their PhD project (this will be provided following review of the EOI form as only one student will be accepted for each project);
• submit the EOI form to [email protected];
• apply for admission to study (or be within the first six months of) a PhD program at ANU;
• if invited to do so, complete the Digital Agriculture PhD Supplementary Scholarship application form and submit prior to the closing date.

Applicants wishing to be considered for more than one project should complete and submit separate EOI forms for each topic of interest.

Key dates

Contact

Questions about the scholarship may be directed to the CEAT Executive Officer at [email protected]