Getting Started in OzGrav

​We hope that the below information assists all our new OzGrav members in getting started and learning what OzGrav is all about. As an OzGrav member, you are encouraged to take full advantage of all the opportunities, resources, and pool of expertise that OzGrav has to offer.

OzGrav is a seven-year ~AUD$45M project funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council Centres of Excellence funding scheme, and is a partnership between our 8 “Nodes” (Swinburne University – host of OzGrav headquarters, Australian National University, Monash University, University of Adelaide, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, University of Sydney, and the University of Western Australia), along with other collaborating organisations in Australia and overseas. The original OzGrav project operated from 2017 to 2024, and our current seven-year funding period will enable our continued operations through to 2031. We have over 200 members spread across our nodes and partner organisations. You can find out more about our People here.

The mission of OzGrav is to capitalise on the historic first detections of gravitational waves to understand the extreme physics of black holes and warped spacetime, and to inspire the next generation of Australian scientists and engineers through this new window on the Universe.

​OzGrav’s research Programs are structured under the Themes. New members are encouraged to use the links below to familiarise yourself with our Key Research Programs:

• Instrumentation
• Discovery
• Physics

A great way to get your head around what OzGrav does is to flick through our latest Annual Report!

​​It is important that all publications reporting OzGrav work acknowledge OzGrav and ARC, and that publications presenting non-OzGrav work are not marked as OzGrav papers.

Acknowledgement:
The Australian Research Council (ARC) must be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section of publications. E.g. “This research was conducted [or “Parts of this research were conducted”] by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), through project number CE230100016″

Affiliation:
Your affiliation should include “OzGrav”, as this helps us identify OzGrav publications, as required for our annual report to the ARC. Two examples of how you could include “OzGrav” in your affiliation are:

• Example with a single affiliation:
  1 OzGrav-Monash, School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
• Example with two affiliations:
  1 School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
  2 ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), Clayton, VIC, Australia

Note: NSF also requires that any presentation or publication that uses data from the LIGO instruments must include the following text:
“This material is based upon work supported by NSF’s LIGO Laboratory which is a major facility fully funded by the National Science Foundation.”

• Adhering to our Code of Conduct. This includes acting fairly and reasonably and treating colleagues and members of the public with respect, impartiality, and sensitivity.  You may also wish to refer to your own institution’s policies around harassment, conduct, dispute resolution etc, some of which are listed here.
• ​Contributing to our reporting requirements (especially our Annual Reports) by providing information when requested in a timely fashion.
• Sending us any good news stories and interesting science results as they arise, so we can promote your successes via social and traditional media.
• Actively participating in our weekly Friday videocons, and other relevant meetings.

OzGrav is aware that at times work and studies can impact your mental health and wellbeing which can have an effect on your work and home life. OzGrav offers support, information and resources to its members to assist you in looking after your mental health and wellbeing.
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OzGrav offers its members mental health first aid training (usually through your home institution), where you can learn the signs and symptoms of mental health problems, where and how to get help, and what sort of help has been shown by research to be effective. If you are interested in this training please contact COO Yeshe Fenner coo@ozgrav.org for further information. Additionally, there are several support services available to help with mental health issues. If you or someone you care about are going through a difficult time, please reach out and speak to someone. See here for more details of free support services and hotlines that you can access.

OzGrav members have access to a range of tools and systems that we use for sharing information (e.g. Slack, intranet, calendars, social media, Github, videoconferencing tools, and mailing lists).

These are described on our intranet. Contact info@ozgrav.org if you have trouble accessing the intranet or if you have any questions. 

It can be confusing when you join OzGrav and are surrounded by an alphabet soup of acronyms. Here’s a list of commonly used acronyms to help orient yourself.