The federal government has made available a $500,000 grant to investigate the possible health effects of mobile phones and phone towers.
Research institutions in Victoria and South Australia will establish a $2.5 million "virtual" centre called the Centre of Research Excellence in Electromagnetic Energy.
The $500,000 grant will be made available over five years through the federal government's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
NHMRC chief executive Alan Pettigrew said that, with about 13 million mobile phones in Australia there was a lot of public concern regarding the issue.
"There is a large amount of research looking at the possible health risks around the world, but there has been no conclusive evidence," he said.
The consortium will be led by RMIT (Victoria) and includes the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science (South Australia), Monash University (Victoria), Swinburne University of Technology (Victoria) and Telstra Research Laboratories (Victoria).