The Templeton World Charity Foundation will fund the Macquarie Minds Intelligence Initiative (MMII) with a $797,000 USD ($1.2 million AUD), two-year grant to support this research hub examining diverse intelligence across natural and artificial systems.
MMII will coordinate research into diverse intelligence, bringing together 27 international partners and 27 researchers across four research programs from Sep 2025 to Aug 2027.
The funding supports one of only three hubs worldwide funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, positioning Macquarie University alongside Princeton University and the University of St Andrews as leaders in intelligence research. The Macquarie hub represents the Oceania region.
Professor Andrew Barron, Director of the Macquarie Minds Intelligence Initiative, says the funding will support cross-faculty collaboration examining fundamental questions about thinking and consciousness.
“This initiative brings together researchers from a range of disciplines across Macquarie University – from science and medicine to arts, education and business – to explore how intelligence manifests in different forms,” Professor Barron says.
“We’re examining everything from how bees with tiny brains can display complex behaviour, to how institutions can best combine human and artificial intelligence for optimal decision-making.”
The initiative encompasses four research themes: minds and cultures, exploring interaction between individual cognition and cultural environments; decision intelligence, focusing on social and collective intelligence including institutional responses to artificial intelligence; kinds of minds, comparing natural and artificial intelligence systems; and cognitive flourishing, investigating conditions to allow human intelligence to reach its full potential.
Professor S Bruce Dowton, Vice-Chancellor, Macquarie University, says the initiative represents the University’s commitment to addressing complex questions that require interdisciplinary approaches.
“The Macquarie Minds Intelligence Initiative demonstrates our capacity to bring together world-leading researchers across traditional academic boundaries,” Professor Dowton says.
“Through this co-funded research, we’re exploring questions that matter more than ever as artificial intelligence reshapes society: how do minds work, what can we learn from other species, and how do we prepare for a future where human and machine intelligence must work together?”
The funding will primarily support short-term fellowships and catalyst workshops to promote career development of early career researchers, enabling mobility between partner institutions and cross-faculty training.
Tina Cambridge, President and COO of the Templeton World Charity Foundation, said: "Macquarie has been a great partner and we're excited to support this important new venture."
The partnership follows a recent international workshop at Macquarie University that brought together leading researchers studying intelligence across animal, human and artificial minds, including experts in bee consciousness, AI ethics, collective intelligence and tool use in great apes.
