Grants

My commercial research has had a chance to acquire funds from different organizations and agencies. A summary of many of the key grants, either external or internal, funded projects that I played a key role as a member of team and some key research outputs are listed below. On other hand, I also list some of key unsuccessful research grants demonstrating how hardworking I am to acquire funds. Note that Chief Investigator (CI) in Australia is also known as Principle Investigator (PI) in Europe/US. 

Successful Grants 

• 2024-2026, Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant

  • Project title: Robust Defences against Adversarial Machine Learning for UAV Systems (project id: LP230100083) 

  • CIs: Professor Willy Susilo; Associate Professor Jun Yan; Professor Son Lam Phung; Dr Yannan Li; Associate Professor Yang-Wai Chow; Dr Fendy Santoso; Professor Jun Shen; Professor Jianming Yong; Dr Bo Du; Dr Mahdi Fahmideh 

  • Project description: This project aims to investigate robust defences for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems to protect them against adversarial Machine Learning (ML) attacks. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the area of cybersecurity using innovative approaches to safeguard UAV systems from attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in ML models. The expected outcomes of this project include improve techniques for understanding and developing robust ML models and enhanced capacity to design secure UAV systems. This should provide significant benefits, such as improving the security of UAV technology and increasing the reliable use of UAVs for transport and logistics services to support urban and regional communities in Australia. 

  • Value: AUS $445K 

  • Admin organisation: University of Wollongong 

• 2023-2024, Visiting Research Fellow Grant

  • Admin organization: invited by University of Borås, Sweden

  • Value: AUS $17K

    • Representative output: here

• 2023-2024, Capacity Building Grants

  • • Project title: Trustworthy AI for design science research

    • CIs: Dr. Mahdi Fahmideh, Dr. Michael Lane, Professor Jianming Yong, Professor Ravinesh, Professor Jun Shen 

    • Project description: to provide a framework and a set of trustworthy guidelines that inform appropriate adoption strategies throughout a DSR artifact creation where generative AI is intertwined.

    • Value: AUS $12K

    • Admin organisation: University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ)

• 2023-2025, Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant

  • • Project title: Empowering Australia’s Visual Arts via Creative Blockchain Opportunities (project id: LP210300009) 

    • CIs: Associate Professor Brian Yecies; Professor Jianming Yong; Associate Professor Jun Shen; Dr Mahdi Fahmideh; Dr Joanne Law; Associate Professor Dongming Xu; Dr Agnieszka Golda; Dr Jongkil Kim; Dr Grant Ellmers; Dr Zeyang Zhou; Dr Shiping Chen; Mr Nick Qi; Mr Xinchi Zhou

    • Project description: This project investigates the provision of a blockchain-based solution for protecting the intellectual property and provenance of visual art, and ways to empower its economic, cultural, and social value and benefits. By exploring innovative non-fungible token (NFT) opportunities in a global cyber security context, we will co-design a user-friendly and compliant tool for expanding the creation and movement of art on existing virtual galleries and smart contract-enabled platforms. Building on interdisciplinary synergies between creative and IT practices, we will interrogate the efficacy, risks and governance surrounding this global technology, and produce vital new knowledge for engaging with risks and opportunities in the digital economy.

    • Value: AUS $570K (4th chief investigator)

    • Admin organisation: University of Wollongong 

    • Further details: Scheme Round Statistics for Approved Applications - Linkage Projects 2021 round 3

      • Representative paper: Fahmideh, Mahdi; Gunawardana, Anuradha; Chen, Shiping; Shen, Jun; Yecies, Brian; Blockchain Developments and Innovations - An Analytical Evaluation of Software Engineering Approaches, International Conference on Internet of Things (ICIOT), Springer, DOI, 2021

• 2021, Deanship of Scientific Research

  • Project title: Modernising Legacy Software as Mobile Computing Systems

  • CIs: Dr. Aakash Ahmad, Dr Mahdi Fahmideh

  • Project description: This research project proposes a process, complemented by tool support and human intervention, to modernise legacy software as IoT-based application. A case study on connected and smart healthcare demonstrates scenario-based usability of the modernisation process and criteria-driven evaluation of the modernised application. The proposed solution advances existing research and practices on software evolution by enabling process, tool, and human decision support for reengineering legacy software as IoT-based application. My role was as a foreign consultant to visit the Ha’il, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, though due to the pandemic at that time, I couldn't get a chance to travel there. 

  • Value: AUS $6K 

  • Admin organisation: Deanship of Scientific Research, University of Ha’il, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

  • Representative outcomes: (i) one special issue (IoT for fighting COVID-19) in the journal of Pervasive and Mobile Computing – Elsevier and (ii) research paper on migrating legacy systems to IoT.

• 2021, Visiting Research Fellow Grant

  • • Project title: Information system development methods for implementing blockchain based systems

    • CIs: Dr Mahdi Fahmideh, Professor Tuure Tuunanen, Professor Pekka Abrahamsson

    • Project description: To explore engineering methodologies encompassing tailorable lifecycle process in order to implement blockchain-based software systems running on blockchain platforms which meet the requirements of smart contracts including security, privacy, interoperability, and information exchange.

    • Admin organization: University of Jyväskylä, Finland  

    • Value: AUS $7.5K (November - December 2021)

• 2019-2022, Early Career Researcher Grant (school internal grant) 

  • • Project title: Blockchain adoption in securing digital health services 

    • CIs: Dr Mahdi Fahmideh, Dr Elena Vlahu-Gjorgievska

    • Project description: This is a three-year full scholarship to recruit eligible applicants to conduct PhD program (2019-2022)

    • Admin organization: Internal grant, School of Computing and Information Technology (SCIT), University of Wollongong

    • Value: AUS $98K

    • The grant was suspended due to COVID-19 impact

• 2019 Start-up grant (school internal grant) 

  • Project title: CIs: Dr Mahdi Fahmideh

  • CIs: Dr Mahdi Fahmideh

  • Project description: Exploring software engineering for developing Internet of Things (IoT) based systems 

  • Admin organization: School of computing and information technology, University of Wollongong 

  • Value: AUS $10K

    • Representative paper: Fahmideh, Mahdi; Aakash, Ahmad; Behnaz, Ali; Grundy, John; Susilo, Willy; Software Engineering for Internet of Things: The Practitioners' Perspective, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), DOI, 2021, ERA CORE A*, SJR Q1

• Sep 2016 - PhD Placement Scholarship for Research Excellence

  • Awarded scholarship ($3000) for my research excellence at Business School, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. The scholarship was provided to recognize outstanding research performance in completing PhD program and provide financial support for activities helpful in securing a prestigious placement post-PhD

    • Representative paper: Fahmideh, Mahdi; Daneshgar, Farhad; Rabhi, Fethi; Cloud migration methodologies: preliminary findings, European Conference on Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing–CloudWays Workshop, DOI, 2016

Unsuccessful Grants!

Perhaps it is worth mentioning my unsuccessful grants that gave me some lessons learned ;) 

• 2022, Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant

  • • Project title: Securing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Aided Intelligence for Future Transports (LP220100018)

    • CIs: A/Prof Jun Shen, Dr Bo Du, Dr Mahdi Fahmideh, A/Prof Jun Yan, Dr Fendy Santoso, Dr Peng Wang, Mr Akbar Telikani

    • Project description: This project aims to investigate different types of adversarial attacks to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) aided Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) and develop corresponding countermeasures, which are expected to improve the quality of secure decision-making processes in ITS. The project will advance knowledge in cyber security threats and solutions for UAVs, and also apply innovative approaches to the UAV-aided ITS ecosystem for validation, by using real data provided from UAV and ITS industries. The project outputs will provide valuable references and guidelines for secure and reliable cooperation between UAVs and ground transportation systems, which will strengthen the Australian government’s digital future and innovation strategy.

• 2021, Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant

  • • Project title: Intelligent Blended Collaborative Learning at Scale with Human in the Loop (LP210200370)

    • CIs: A/Prof Jun Shen, Em/Prof Slava Kalyuga, A/Prof Jun Yan, Dr Xuyun Zhang, Dr Tingru Cui, Dr Sasha Nikolic, A/Prof Sharon Tindall-Ford, Dr Qian Zhang, Dr Georg Grossmann, Dr Mahdi Fahmideh, Mr Shun Zhang, Dr Geng Sun, Mr Peng Zhi

    • Project description: This project aims to investigate blended collaborative learning at scale (BCL@S) as a solution for delivering a more effective technology-enhanced education environment, with the engagement of many learners and enormous open education resources, but comparatively fewer onsite instructors or experts. We aim to achieve this by using novel computational intelligence methods, which can enhance learner engagement while maintaining the same level of cognitive load. This multi-disciplinary research will deliver new mechanisms to support the next generation of STEAM education in collaborative and community based settings. This project tackles the equity gap in Australia education by offering opportunities for sharing improved learning experiences.

• 2020, Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant

  • • Project title: Sharing is caring: multi-agent process conformance for home care services (LP200301145)

    • CIs: Associate Professor Ping Yu, Dr. Mahdi Fahmideh, Prof Aditya Ghose, Dr Hui Chen (Rita) Chang, A/Prof Jun Shen, Ms Jessie Wu

    • Project description: Australia’s community services, i.e. aged care and disability services, are in crisis, under Royal Commission inquiry. Digital health gives hope for lifting their quality and productivity once the solution is affordable, useful, easy to use, and enable sharing with other digital health systems to achieve service continuity. This project will design a commercially viable concept-to-production transformation process towards digitisation of home care services. It will develop and validate the first suite of leading methods and technologies in partnership with a small company serving the ethnic Chinese community. The expected outcomes are the novel methods and digital technology that empower small businesses, Australia’s social-economic fabric.