The Australian Functional Fungi Initiative is now seeking partnerships to create foundational biomolecular data resources to fast-track knowledge and innovation of Australian Fungi.
NOTE: Due to Bioplatforms Australia’s prior investment in the Plant Pathogen Omics Initiative, plant fungal pathogens will not be considered in this Request for Partnership.
BACKGROUND AND MISSION
Fungi represent a distinct kingdom of life, with unique biological characteristics, ecological roles and biochemical capabilities that underpin healthy ecosystems and emerging bio-based industries. Australian native fungi are hypothesised to be both taxonomically and functionally unique from their northern hemisphere counterparts, yet they remain one of the least understood components of Australia’s biodiversity. This significant knowledge gap limits our ability to discover novel species, understand fungal functions, and realise their potential across health, agriculture, environmental management and advanced manufacturing.
The Australian Functional Fungi Initiative will support the generation of high-quality reference genomes, metabolomic and proteomics datasets, and associated metadata for prioritised functionally interesting groups of Australian native fungi. These data will support the discovery of novel bioactive compounds, enzymes and ecological functions, while strengthening taxonomic knowledge and enabling new applications in food production, pharmaceuticals, biomaterials, land restoration, waste management and circular economies. This national effort aims to provide researchers, industry, government and biological collections with the foundational molecular resources needed to unlock the ecological and scientific value of Australia’s unique fungal biodiversity.
A FOCUS ON APPLIED RESEARCH OUTCOMES
This Request for Partnership supports collaborative projects to generate high-quality biomolecular reference data to improve understanding and sustainable use of Australia’s unique fungal diversity. Proposed projects should demonstrate a clear pathway to applied outcomes by advancing knowledge, developing new capabilities, or informing practical applications across one or more of the following applied priority themes:
- Health and medicine
- Environment and Conservation
- Food
- Industry innovation
- Taxonomy and biodiversity
The below topics represent some examples of applied projects where biomolecular data can bring substantial value to research. Project applications are not expected to address all of these topics, or only these topics.
- Toxicity: edible or health risk investigations
- Food processing and production: fermentation and flavour
- Industrial products: enzymes and organic acids, substrate metabolism
- Agriculture: beneficial endophytic or mycorrhizal investigation
- Pharmaceutical products: medicinal bioactive properties
- Pest control: insect interactions including entomopathogenic fungi
- Taxonomy: species identification, Australian Fungal biodiversity investigation
- Health: identification and marker development for human pathogenic fungi
- Indigenous knowledge: research undertaken in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to investigate culturally significant fungi, support Indigenous-led knowledge systems, or inform biocultural conservation, consistent with Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) principles
- Environment: decomposition (carbon/ or nutrient cyclers)
Projects that leverage and collaborate with Australia’s national fungal collections will be viewed favourably.
SUPPORT PROVIDED
Bioplatforms Australia will provide support for the following resources:
- DNA extraction services (where required)
- Genomics data generation (WGS, either ONT or Illumina for reference genomes or population genomics)
- Metabolomic or proteomic characterisation
- Project management and data management (raw data storage and access, with associated metadata).
- Automated reference genome assembly and data submission to the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) through the Australian Tree of Life Genome Engine pipeline
- The Australian Functional Fungi Initiative will provide access to the required high-performance computing (Pawsey and NCI) and analytical resources through the Australian BioCommons Leadership Share (ABLeS).
- Collaboration in a national consortium of mycology and omics experts.
The sequencing will be undertaken by Bioplatforms Australia facilities through the Framework Initiative Program, and subsequent informatics is to be supported by the applicants. Compute and software support for Bioinformatics is available through the Australian BioCommons.
REQUEST FOR PARTNERSHIP
Projects are encouraged to target an applied theme and will be assessed based on the following criteria:
- Project team: contains the expertise to complete the project and collaborates with industry or collection partners
- Rationale/hypothesis: Designed to enhance knowledge and improve the understanding of the functions of Australian fungi through hypothesis-driven research that addresses a clearly defined scientific question.
- Timely sample availability: To create referential data resources that are immediately useful for researchers, samples for data generation need to be provided within 12 months of project acceptance.
- Co-contribution: the team must be capable of marshalling the resources necessary to complement Bioplatforms Australia project investment (biomolecular data generation and access to high-end compute resources – NCI and Pawsey), in order to bring the project to completion. Sample collection and data analysis are to be supported by co-investment (in time) from the researcher. The ability to conduct value-add analyses is highly desirable.
- Scale of the request: Support through the Australian Functional Fungi Initiative is intended to be catalytic, enabling or enhancing existing research activities rather than serving as the sole source of funding for data acquisition within a project. This RFP anticipates supporting approximately 20–25 projects.
It should be noted that this is not a competitive grant opportunity and the Australian Functional Fungi Initiative will endeavour to support projects that aim to enhance functional knowledge and application of Australia’s fungi. Project assessment will be guided by the Australian Functional Fungi Advisory Committee.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLYING
NOTE: Due to Bioplatforms Australia’s prior investment in the Plant Pathogen Omics Initiative, plant fungal pathogens will not be considered in this Request for Partnership.
- Please ensure you’ve read all information on this page before completing the Request for Partnership (RFP) application.
- Complete the online form here and submit one document per species or activity. For preparation purposes, you can find a downloadable template here.
- Address all criteria/questions listed, you will be able to edit the form after its submission and until the deadline.
Deadline: COB 18 September 2026
Contact information
Dr Sophie Mazard, Project Manager smazard@bioplatforms.com
Dr Kelly Scarlett, Partnerships and Engagement Lead kscarlett@bioplatforms.com
We welcome collaboration, and parties interested in participating in the Australian Functional Fungi initiative, including this RFP, should get in contact with the FFI Program Manager (Sophie Mazard).