The bulk of the money - $380 million - will be spent on health research projects.

Australian National University epidemiologist Professor Adrian Sleigh received $1.5 million to continue a long-running health study of 100,000 people in Thailand.

Other large grants included $1.25 million for a Northern Territory study of antibiotics and scabies and $1.3 million for improving care for indigenous Australians suffering type 2 diabetes.

The ACT's recipients also included Associate Professor John Bekkers, who was granted $358,000 to study nerve cells that allow mammals to remember and recognise smells.

Professor Sleigh's study, which is in its fifth year, tracks about 100,000 people across Thailand who have enrolled in the Sukhothai Thammathirat open university.

Professor Sleigh and his team will examine what health problems people develop and what health risks they face.

''There's dramatic changes going on in health status with rising blood pressures, increasing rates of diabetes, increasing rates of stroke, decreasing rates of stomach cancer, increasing rates of colon cancer ... and so on,'' he said. The study involves Thai and Australian researchers from ANU, the University of Queensland and the Sukhothai Thammathirat university.

Professor Sleigh said Thai health officials were also keeping abreast of the research.

''The Thais can take shortcuts in their public health evolution. They don't have to go through this epidemic of ischemic heart disease or coronary heart disease that Western countries did for 30 years,'' he said.

''Maybe they can avoid that; maybe they can avoid the diabetes epidemic that is looming; maybe they can anticipate the mental health and depression problems.''

Professor Sleigh's $1.5 million grant was less than the $1.8 million his team asked for.

''It's a little tighter than what we'd hoped, but some people have been cut worse than us.''

The ACT won 18 per cent of the project grants handed out this year, down from 23 per cent in 2008. But a bigger pool of grant money meant Canberra scientists received larger amounts this year.