Australian Research Council

Last updated

Australian Research Council
Australian Research Council logo.svg
Council overview
Formed2001;23 years ago (2001)
Jurisdiction Australian Government
Headquarters Canberra
Employees135 [1]
Annual budgetIncrease2.svgA$815 million (2020–21) [2] :147, [lower-alpha 1]
Minister responsible
Council executive
Key document
Website arc.gov.au

The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than A$800 million in grants each year. The Council was established by the Australian Research Council Act 2001, and provides competitive research funding to academics and researchers at Australian universities. Most health and medical research in Australia is funded by the more specialised National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which operates under a separate budget.

Contents

ARC does not directly fund researchers, but however allocates funds to individual schemes with specialised scopes, such as Discover (fundamental and empirical research) and Linkage (domestic and international collaborative projects). Most of these schemes fall under the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP), whereby institutions must compete amongst each other for funding. ARC also administers the Excellence in Research for Australia framework (ERA), which provides guidelines to evaluate the quality of research. ARC Centres of Excellence, funded for a limited period, are collaborations established among Australian and international universities and other institutions to support research in a variety of fields.

Since 2011, ARC has awarded the annual Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship and the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship, which are research fellowships for female Australian and international researchers, intended to support innovative research programs and mentor early career researchers.

History and governance

The Australian Research Council superseded the Australian Research Grants Committee, which had been providing funding to Australian universities since 1965. [5] It was formed in 1988 as a response to the Dawkins white paper, 'Higher Education: A policy statement', and was established as an independent body in 2001 under the Australian Research Council Act 2001. [5] [6]

As of 2021 the agency is administered by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment, headed by the Minister for Education and Youth. [6]

The ARC's mission is to deliver policy and programs that advance Australian research and innovation globally and benefit the community. [7] It supports research across all disciplines except clinical and other medical and dental research, for which the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is primarily responsible.[ citation needed ]

Research integrity

ARC updates its own Research Integrity Policy, which includes referral to the Australian Research Integrity Committee (ARIC) where necessary. [8] The Australian Research Integrity Committee (ARIC) is an independent body, jointly established by the ARC and the NHMRC, to provide a system to review institutional responses to allegations of research misconduct. [9] [8]

Functional areas

National Competitive Grants Program

ARC funds research and researchers under the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP). Funding opportunities administered by the ARC include the Australian Laureate Fellowship. [10]

The NCGP comprises two main elements—Discovery and Linkage—under which the ARC funds a range of complementary schemes to support researchers at different stages of their careers, build Australia's research capability, expand and enhance research networks and collaborations, and develop centres of research excellence. [10]

Excellence in Research for Australia

ARC administers Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), Australia's national research evaluation framework, which is tasked with identifying and promoting excellence across the full spectrum of research activity in higher education institutions in Australia. [11]

Linkage program

The ARC runs various funding schemes under the banner of Linkage Programs, which encourage research collaborations between researchers and a range of different types of organisations, including private enterprise, community organisations and other research agencies. The Linkage programs include ARC Centres of Excellence, Linkage Projects, and Special Research Initiatives (SRI), including SRI Centres. [12] Recent funding rounds have occurred in 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020, and 2023. [13]

Centres of excellence

Funded by the ARC for a limited period (often seven years), Centres of Excellence (CoE) are large-scale, multi-institutional collaborations established among Australian and international universities, research organisations, governments and businesses, to support research across a number of fields.

Continuing centres include:

Past ARC Centres of Excellence include: [19]

Gender equity

Since 2011, the Australian Research Council has awarded two research fellowships for female Australian and international researchers and research leaders to build Australia's research capacity, undertake innovative research programs and mentor early career researchers. The Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship is awarded to a candidate from the humanities, arts and social science disciplines and the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship is awarded to a candidate from the science and technology disciplines. [25]

YearKathleen Fitzpatrick FellowGeorgina Sweet Fellow
2011 Pippa Norris [26] Mahananda Dasgupta [27]
2012 Susan O'Connor [28] Nalini Joshi [29]
2013 Glenda Sluga [30] Tanya Monro [31]
2014 Joy Damousi [32] Veena Sahajwalla, [33] Kate Smith-Miles [34]
2015 Anne Orford [35] Leann Tilley [35]
2016 Adrienne Stone, [36] Sharon Parker [37] Branka Vucetic [38]
2017 Ann McGrath [39] Michelle Coote [39]
2018 Marilyn Fleer [40] Christine Beveridge [41]
2019 Lynette Russell [42] Belinda Medlyn [43]
2020 Maureen Dollard [44] Catherine Lovelock [45]
2021 Sundhya Pahuja [46] Yun Liu [47]
2022 Larissa Behrendt [48] Joanne Etheridge [49]

Notes

  1. This value represents the funding allocated to the ARC for the purposes of research grants, and does not include the operational budget of the agency.

Related Research Articles

The Free Radical Centre or ARC Centre of Excellence for Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology was a research centre from 2005 - 2013 that was established in the 2005 Australian Research Council (ARC) grant funding rounds. The centre was administered from the University of Melbourne, and had nodes at six Australian universities: The University of Melbourne, the Victorian Pharmacy College at Monash University, The Heart Research Institute at the University of Sydney, Queensland University of Technology, the University of Wollongong, and the Australian National University in Canberra. The Centre had over 100 researchers working in all areas of free radical chemistry, from material science to biology. The centre received an initial grant of $12 million from the ARC in 2005 and a further $9.8 million in 2009. Funding for the centre ended in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew England</span>

Matthew England is a physical oceanographer and climate scientist. He is currently Scientia Professor of Ocean & Climate Dynamics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Michael Cowley FTSE is an Australian physiologist. He is best known for his mapping of the neural circuits involved in metabolism and obesity and diabetes treatment. He is a professor in the Department of Physiology at Monash University in the Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences. He is also a director of the Australian diabetes drug development company, Verva Inc, and director of the Monash Obesity & Diabetes Institute] (modi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nalini Joshi</span> Australian mathematician

Nalini Joshi is an Australian mathematician. She is a professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sydney, the first woman in the School to hold this position, and is a past-president of the Australian Mathematical Society. Joshi is a member of the School's Applied Mathematics Research Group. Her research concerns integrable systems. She was awarded the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship in 2012. Joshi is also the Vice-President of the International Mathematical Union, and is the first Australian to hold this position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brendan Crabb</span> Australian scientist (born 1966)

Brendan Scott CrabbFASM is an Australian microbiologist, research scientist and director and chief executive officer of the Burnet Institute, based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michelle Simmons</span> British-Australian quantum physicist (born 1967)

Michelle Yvonne Simmons is an Australian quantum physicist, recognised for her foundational contributions to the field of atomic electronics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katharina Gaus</span> Australian immunologist (1972–2021)

Katharina Gaus was a German-Australian immunologist and molecular microscopist. She was an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and founding head of the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales. Gaus used new super-resolution fluorescence microscopes to examine the plasma membrane within intact living cells, and study cell signalling at the level of single molecules to better understand how cells "make decisions". A key discovery of Gaus and her team was how T-cells decide to switch on the body's immune system to attack diseases. Her work is of importance to the development of drugs that can work with T-cells in support of the immune system.

Aleksandra Filipovska is a Professor, Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology and NHMRC Investigator at the University of Western Australia, heading a research group at the Telethon Kids Institute. Specializing in biochemistry and molecular biology, she has made contributions to the understanding of human mitochondrial genetics in health and disease.

Professor Susan Rossell is a British researcher based at Swinburne University of Technology specialising in Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging. Originally from Nottingham, UK; she now resides in Melbourne, Australia. Her research on the neuropsychology of schizophrenia and body dysmorphic disorder is internationally recognised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott W. Sloan</span> Australian civil engineering academic (1954–2019)

Scott William Sloan FRS FREng FAA FTSE was laureate Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Newcastle.

The Australian Laureate Fellowship is an Australian professorial research fellowship awarded by the Australian Research Council. Fellows are chosen each year for five-year awards. In 2023 8 industry-focused Laureate Fellowships were awarded for the first time.

Joy Damousi, is an Australian historian and Professor and Director of the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at Australian Catholic University. She was Professor of History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne for most of her career, and retains a fractional appointment. She was the President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities from 2017 to 2020.

Michael S. Fuhrer is a US/Australian physicist recognised internationally as a pioneer in atomically-thin (two-dimensional) materials, including graphene and novel topological materials, with expertise in fabrication and characterisation of their electronic and optical properties.

Maria Forsyth is an Australian chemist. She is a research professor at the University of the Basque Country and an Alfred Deakin Fellow at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia where she holds the Chair in Electromaterials and Corrosion Sciences.

Kaarin Anstey is an Australian Laureate Fellow and one of Australia's top dementia scientists. She is Co-Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where she is Scientia Professor of Psychology. Kaarin Anstey is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She is a Director of the NHMRC Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration, Senior Principal Research Scientist at NeuRA and leads the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Cognitive Health and the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachelle Buchbinder</span> Australian rheumatologist and medical researcher

Rachelle Buchbinder is an Australian rheumatologist and clinical epidemiologist. Her clinical practice is in conjunction with research involving multidisciplinary projects relating to arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. She promotes improvement of communication with patients and health literacy in the community.

Lynette Wendy Russell, is an Australian historian, known for her work on the history of Indigenous Australians; in particular, anthropological history ; archaeology; gender and race, Indigenous oral history, and museum studies.

Glenda Anna Sluga, is an Australian historian who has contributed significantly to the history of internationalism, nationalism, diplomacy, immigration, and gender, in Europe, Britain, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Australia.

Christine Beveridge is an Australian scientist and plant physiologist whose research focuses on the shoot architecture of plants, shrubs and trees. She is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland, Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture, and affiliated professor at the Centre for Crop Science at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.

Robert G. Parton FAA is a British/Australian cell biologist. He is a Group Leader in the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland and Deputy Director of the University of Queensland Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis.

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