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ARC News

• New Laureate Scheme to Attract World Leading Researchers (3/9/08)
• ARC Discovery Newsletter Winter 2008 (27/8/08)
• Leading Researchers Advise on the Indicators of Research Quality (18/8/08)
• Linkage Learned Academies Special Projects (LASP) Application Form for funding commencing in 2009 now available. (14/8/08)
• Linkage Projects 2009 Round 2 Instructions to Applicants is now available. (11/8/08)
• Linkage Projects 2009 Round 2 Sample application form now available. (11/8/08)
• Linkage Learned Academies Special Projects (LASP) Funding Rules for funding commencing in 2009 now available. (8/8/08)
• SRC Final Report Proforma now available (8/8/08)

Key Publications

• ERA Consultation Paper, June 2008
• Submission to the Productivity Commission research study on Public Support for Science and Innovation, August 2006
• Outcomes: Results of research in the real world

Welcome to the Australian Research Council website

The ARC is a statutory authority within the Australian Government's Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (IISR) portfolio. Its mission is to advance Australia's research excellence to be globally competitive and deliver benefits to the community.

In seeking to achieve its mission, the ARC provides advice to the Government on research matters and manages the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP), a significant component of Australia's investment in research and development.

Through the NCGP, the ARC supports the highest-quality fundamental and applied research and research training through national competition across all disciplines, with the exception of clinical medicine and dentistry.

Outcomes: Results of research in the real world

Sometimes people forget that research is important, but just about everything in our modern world is the result of knowledge gained through research.

For example, in our every day lives, many of us access the Internet, take medicine, turn on a heater or air conditioner, exercise at the gym, travel by various modes of transport, eat foods grown with the aid of fertilisers or manufactured by machines, wear synthetic or a mixture of natural and synthetic fibres, and use toothpaste to brush our teeth.

We do all these things and more without necessarily asking ourselves why or how we are able to do so.

Thinking 'bigger picture', we can travel into space, modify genes, predict the weather, get a heart transplant, explore shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean, date fossils and artefacts that have been around for thousands of years, create environmentally safe alternatives to pollutants, and use DNA to solve crimes.

And the reason we can do all of these things, of course, is research.

Outcomes: Results of research in the real world has been produced by the ARC in partnership with Palamedia Ltd as a companion publication to the inaugural ARC Graeme Clark Research Outcomes Forum to showcase examples of Australian research that are making a difference in our lives right now.