Researcher awarded $1.3 million ARC grant to unlock Australia’s environmental memory
CQUniversity will lead a four-year research project exploring how Australia’s ancient past, First Nations knowledge and historical records can be reconnected to help shape the future of regional communities.
CQUniversity Principal Research Fellow in Applied Palaeontology & Palaeotourism, Dr Scott Hocknull has been awarded a four-year Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship worth $1,326,969 to investigate how Australia’s extraordinary record of environmental change can be better developed, understood and used by regional communities for education, tourism, conservation and regional diversification.
As part of the project, CQUniversity will also support Higher Degree Student places for First Nations and regional students to work on the project.
Based at CQUniversity’s Rockhampton campus, Dr Hocknull will use case studies in regional Queensland to build connections across Australia and the Southern Hemisphere, including Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Argentina and Chile.
Dr Hocknull describes Australia’s record of environmental change as its “environmental memory”, preserved as a continuum in our ancient rocks, fossils, landscapes and ecosystems alongside First Nations cultural knowledge, regional colonial archives, and modern technology.
“From dinosaurs and megafauna to ancient caves, fossil forests and remarkable landscape formations, regional Australia holds some of the world’s richest records of environmental change – our environmental memory,” Dr Hocknull said.
“These ‘geonatural archives’ connect deep time with the present and tell the long story of how Australia’s landscapes, ecosystems and species – including us – have responded to change over hundreds of millions of years.”
However, much of this environmental knowledge remains fragmented or disconnected from the places and communities where it originated.
The project will investigate how science, cultural knowledge, historical records and new technologies can be brought together to recover context, reveal new stories and make this knowledge more accessible and useful.
A key focus will be working with regional communities and First Nations peoples to explore the stories held within particular places and connect them to the broader Australian and Southern Hemisphere story.
“I will be focusing on exemplar places and connecting these to the bigger Australian and Southern Hemisphere story,” Dr Hocknull said.
“This will be informed by community engagement and design.”
The research will also explore how regional heritage can create new opportunities across environmental research and conservation, education, tourism, digital experiences, cultural connection and regional industries.
Dr Hocknull said Queensland was an ideal place to begin the work.
“I will be based out of CQUniversity Rockhampton, so the lion’s share of the work will be in Queensland – a good place to start with geonature – but the project will have impact and connections across Australia and our near neighbours in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, and the ‘global south’ of Argentina and Chile,” he said.
“Our prehistoric fauna connects central Queensland with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, a shared heritage most people don’t know about.
“Our outback dinosaurs connect us with Argentina, Chile, Brazil and even Japan, again something no one knows much about.
“Building these from a baseline in regional Australia to inform a global story and shared heritage is an exciting prospect supported by the grant,” he said.
The Future Fellowship forms part of the ARC’s $344 million 2026 investment in more than 290 research projects addressing major national challenges and opportunities.
The 2026 round is the largest Future Fellowships investment to date and will support researchers to build their research programs, develop new ideas and strengthen Australia’s research capability.
The funded research spans disciplines, including projects focused on protecting Australia’s environment, improving resilience and addressing challenges facing communities.
ARC Chief Executive Officer Professor Ute Roessner AM FAA said the projects demonstrated the value of investing in research that expands knowledge, addresses complex challenges and creates benefits for Australians.
For CQUniversity, the Fellowship places regional Queensland at the centre of a major research program connecting palaeontology, environmental science, cultural knowledge, history and emerging technologies.
Dr Hocknull said the project would look to the past to help communities understand their places and respond to the future.
“By reconnecting deep-time records with First Nations knowledge, colonial histories and modern environmental data, we can create a richer understanding of place,” he said.
