The success rate was 29 per cent, with 61 approved bids asking for $36.4m and receiving $29.6m

Uni Queensland leads with eight successes, followed by Monash U and Uni Adelaide with six each. All up Group of Eight institutions accounted for 33 of the 61 awards.

As for the disliked National Interest Test statements, the one from Huai-Yong Zhu (QUT) helped CMM have a clue what, “Scale-up of catalytic furandicarboxylic acid production at room temperature” is about. “This project will deliver an efficient, energy-saving new technique for the industrial-scale production of commodities such as plastics that are critical to modern life using plant-based rather than petroleum sources,” his NIT states.