Macquarie University Defence Innovation Network (DIN) Scholarship 2025

This scholarship focuses on the critical challenge of countering malicious AI-generated content and disinformation campaigns.

This project develops AI-driven methods to detect and trace AI-generated or manipulated news, addressing disinformation and influence campaigns. It enhances national security by verifying news authenticity and analysing synthetic media trends.

Recent developments in AI have led to the ability to produce high-quality machine-generated content that is difficult to distinguish from human-produced content. While there are many potential positive applications, they exhibit a propensity to generate erroneous, hallucinating or misleading content and can be exploited for malicious applications, such as generating false but credible-sounding content and profiles at scale.

This leads to two core challenges:

1. It is still an active challenge to accurately detect this machine-generated content.
2. These uses also make it more difficult to attribute the media to a particular source thereby obscuring the accountability. Disinformation and influence campaign detection are key applications in this context.

Anticipated outcomes

This project aims to develop a comprehensive toolkit for countering AI-generated disinformation campaigns within 36 months. Anticipated outcomes include:

• identification of AI-generated text and false narratives within social media campaigns
• pinpointing the source of AI-generated content, potentially through watermarking LLMs
• detection of hidden agendas within text data, such as propaganda or rumours
• distinguishing between genuine audience reactions and coordinated efforts by bots or troll farms.

Table of Content

• Summary
• Benefits
• Requirments
• Application Deadline
• How To Apply

Summary

• Application DeadlineOctober 31, 2025
• Value$44,000 per annum
• Study LevelPhD
• SponsorMacquarie University
• City to studyNew South Wales
• School to studyMacquarie University
• Eligible CountryAll Countries

Benefits

The scholarship comprises:

• a tuition fee offset or scholarship
• a living allowance stipend
• a stipend top-up from Defence Innovation Network.

Requirements

This scholarship is available to eligible candidates to undertake a direct entry three-year PhD program.

Applicants for graduate research scholarships at Macquarie University must meet the minimum entry criteria to the relevant course of study and should review the available courses listed for each scholarship on the scholarship search tool when considering their application.

Macquarie University assesses and ranks applicants based primarily on academic merit and research experience. Alignment of the proposed research topic with the University’s research priorities and the strength of the supervisory team may also be considered.

Learn more about the scholarship rating criteria.

Specific eligibility criteria apply to research pathway scholarships, which support Macquarie University students as they progress through the research pathway.

Application Deadline

How To Apply

New applicants to Macquarie University should follow the steps on our How to Apply page.

Applicants who are already enrolled, commenced the Macquarie PhD program, or have received a valid Macquarie University letter of offer for a graduate research program within the last six months, must:

• download our guidelines on how to submit a Scholarship Only application
• submit an online Graduate Research Scholarship Only application form with supporting documents
• indicate the scholarship reference number under the scholarship details question.

Learn more about submitting an application.

For more information, kindly visit Macquarie University scholarship webpage.