Six PhD scholarships designed to reduce and manage bushfire risk are being offered at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.
Each scholarship is worth up to $28,000 per annum over three years.
Financed by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, the scholarships are open to students interested in researching key issues for fire and land management agencies around Australia and New Zealand.
"This year’s bushfires show we have a lot to learn about mitigating and managing fire risks," Faculty Dean and Bushfire CRC program leader Professor Mark Adams said.
"Fuel reduction burning is one obvious means of mitigating bushfire risk but there is a lot of detail we still need to understand.
"This includes charcoal production and its role in soil carbon turnover, greenhouse gas fluxes and the effects of fires of water resources.
"We’ve worked with the Bushfire CRC to develop these scholarships in the hope of improving Australia’s capacity to deal with bushfires, and making our communities safer and more sustainable."
The scholarships are suited to students with backgrounds in soil science, plant physiology and ecology and with a good masters or honours level degree in science, forestry, environmental science or similar disciplines.
Successful applicants will be expected to conduct field work in Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT, home to major fires in recent years.
Applications for the bushfire research scholarships close on 1 January.
