Australian Research Council

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.

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.