A radio telescope in central Western Australia designed to examine the origins of the universe has been given a funding boost that experts say will improve its performance tenfold.

The Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope project, led by Curtin University, has been awarded a $1 million Australian Research Council (ARC) grant for an upgrade that will help it survey large areas of the Southern Hemisphere sky.

Director of the MWA at Curtin University, Professor Steven Tingay described the telescope as a "time machine" that received radio waves from objects in the universe 12 billion years ago.

"It's designed to look back in time to the early stages of the evolution of the universe when the first stars were being born," he said.

"We're looking back into the origins of us, our plant, our solar system, where everything comes from.

"All of the molecules and atoms that make up our bodies, everything that you can see and touch throughout the course of your life was created in stars.

"We are trying to help figure out how we got from the early universe to the universe that we live in today."

The grant is part of funding announced by Federal Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham.

It will be used to double the number of antennas to 256, to help make the telescope more sensitive and quadruple the footprint of the MWA to 28 square kilometres, helping it take more detailed images.

"[It's] like a weightlifter capable of lifting 100kg suddenly being able to lift 1,000kg," Professor Tingay said.

He said the telescope had collected seven petabytes (1,000 terabytes) of data over the last two and a half years, equivalent to half a million hours worth of high-definition video streaming.

"That data is all processed in super computers and we produce images of the sky that show us all of these different processes in a great amount of detail," Professor Tingay said.

"With the upgrade that this grant provides, we will able to collect even more and better data, helping to advance our understanding of the last unstudied phase of cosmic evolution."

'Critical stage of research' of universe's origin

Professor Tingay said the funding came at a crucial stage of research, providing the training ground for young scientists who would one day work on the billion-dollar Square Kilometre Array telescope set to be built in Western Australia.

The project involves 17 institutions across five countries, comprising Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada and the United States.

Professor Tingay said there were hundreds of scientists involved in the project across the world.

Professor Tingay says young scientists who will eventually work on the Square Kilometre Array are being trained on the MWA project. ( Supplied )

He said there was a "cousin" telescope in the Netherlands that worked at the same frequency, but MWA was unique because it had been built in the middle of nowhere.

"There is no human made radio interference ... or TV stations or mobile phones or anything," he said.

"As you could image, in the Netherlands there is a lot of human-made interference."

The team is hoping to complete all the upgrades by the end of 2016.

"We thought it was such a great proposal and so compelling, that in a fairly cheeky manner, we actually got started on this upgrade before we even knew the outcome of this proposal," Professor Tingay said.

"We have been preparing the site and preparing for construction ... we can get started immediately to get along with the science as soon as possible."

Curtin University's Deputy vice-chancellor of research Graeme Wright said this year's funding was almost double that of previous years.

"I'd put that down to the quality of the proposals," he said.

"And the alignment of those proposals with major objectives identified for the country."

Mr Wright said the Australian Research Council received around 5,000 applications this year from across the nation, and out of that approximately 900 were successful.

He said the funding would support 25 research projects at Curtin, covering a wide range of areas.

"The projects go from mapping rage and violence in settler states all the way through to producing higher quality storage batteries to assist with delivering sustainable energy sources," he said.