Personalise
A female student working in a chemistry lab

UNSW fundamental science research includes pure mathematics, theoretical physics, and fundamental chemistry.  It is the cornerstone from which all science emerges - a collection of principles that reach across and underpin different domains of research to provide the basis for more applied or technological sciences.

Our research strengths

UNSW Science excels in numerous areas of the fundamental sciences. Our research into pure mathematics (for example algebra, number theory and combinatorics) translates into advances in computer science, cryptography and, of course, quantum mechanics. Our astrophysics projects seek to understand the formation of exoplanets and – grander still – galaxies, including the mechanisms that govern their inexorable growth and transformation. At their roots, these astrophysics projects require machine learning and the statistical methods that fall within the realm of fundamental science. 

In physics and chemistry, our academics are teasing apart the very fabric of reality with their research into dark matter, quantum mechanics and relativity, areas which promise answers to some of humanity’s greatest questions. Our School of Chemistry is engaged in an array of fundamental chemistry, including organic and inorganic, and physical and analytical chemistry. Advances in these fundamentals will lead to the development of new drugs, new energy sources, and chemical catalysts and sensors for countless novel and valuable applications. 

View of Earth and a satellite
UNSW

Research impacts

Through the fundamental sciences, UNSW researchers have shed light on the past – studying the evolutionary origins of bacterial movement, opens in a new window – as well as shaping the future, with discoveries of how our cellular membranes can accept vaccines, opens in a new window, including those with a basis of mRNA. 

And fuelled by maths, we’ve launched satellites into space to study the coverage and density of Antarctic sea ice, witnessing the encroachment of climate change from the lens of climate science and vantage point of space. Working backwards, UNSW mathematicians have uncovered the world’s earliest use of geometry, opens in a new window, an entire millennium before the birth of Pythagoras. 

Study

For students interested in the Fundamental Sciences, the options for research are manifold, from undergrad opportunities through to postgrad and beyond.