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This page provides a quick overview of the ARC, including where it sits within government, its role and objectives, and funding schemes. For more information about any of the subjects on this page, follow the links.

What is the ARC?

The ARC is a statutory authority within the Australian Government's Innovation, Industry, Science and Research portfolio.

The role of the ARC is to advise the Australian Government on research matters and manage the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP).

What does the ARC do?

The ARC funds research and researchers under the NCGP. Most funding is awarded over several years, so in addition to administering the funding, ARC staff must also manage post-award matters such as progress and accountability reporting.

Proposals for research funding under the NCGP are subjected to independent and extensive competitive peer review by Australian and international experts, who rank the proposals according to merit.

The ARC’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) makes funding recommendations, informed by the rankings, to the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. The Minister has final responsibility for allocating the funding.

ARC-funded researchers submit annual progress reports and a final report on their research. The final report contains information about publications arising from their research, research training and personnel employed as a result of the ARC’s support.

In turn, the ARC compiles this information for the Government and the Australian community as a record of ARC-funded research outcomes and benefits.

Who works at the ARC?

The people of the ARC are a mix of academics, including the CEO and five professor-level Executive Directors, and about 100 career public servants.

For the ARC's structure and reporting lines, have a look at the organisation chart.

College of Experts

The ARC's College of Experts assesses and ranks funding proposals, makes funding recommendations and provides strategic advice. Members of the College are experts in their fields and come from within higher education, industry and public sector research organisations.

The College of Experts is supported by thousands of Australian and international readers who review funding proposals and provide comments and rankings on them to panels of the College assigned to provide to the ARC's CEO a final assessment of each proposal.

For more information on the ARC's competitive peer review system, visit Peer Review Processes.

The ARC mission

The ARC mission is to deliver policy and programs that advance Australian research and innovation globally and benefit the community.

ARC funding

ARC funding under the NCGP is divided into two streams, called Discovery and Linkage. Within each stream, there are several different funding schemes designed to support researchers at different stages of their careers.

The ARC funds research in all disciplines except clinical medicine and dentistry. For convenience, the ARC divides its schemes across five inter-disciplinary groups:

• Biological Sciences and Biotechnology
• Engineering, Mathematics and Informatics
• Humanities and Creative Arts
• Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences
• Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences

At any given time, the ARC funds about 5,000 research projects.

ARC schemes

Discovery

The ARC's Discovery schemes fund research that is likely to lead to something new, i.e. a discovery. The schemes are:

• Discovery Indigenous Researchers Development
• Discovery Projects
• Australian Laureate Fellowships
• Future Fellowships

Linkage

The ARC's Linkage schemes fund research conducted by researchers at higher education organisations such as universities in partnership with businesses, community organisations and/or government organisations. The main schemes are:

• Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities
• Linkage Learned Academies Special Projects
• Linkage Projects

ARC Centres and Special Research Initiatives also fit within the Linkage stream, but because they are large and/or irregular, they are often thought to sit outside the two main streams.

Under its Centres scheme, the ARC funds:

• ARC Centres of Excellence
• ARC Special Research Centres
• Co-funded Centres of Excellence

ARC Special Research Initiatives are often pilot schemes in emerging areas of research or that don't easily fit within the definitions or requirements for funding of other ARC funding schemes.

National Research Priorities

ARC funding schemes support research in the Australian Government's four National Research Priority areas of:

• an environmentally sustainable Australia
• promoting and maintaining good health
• frontier technologies for building and transforming Australian industries
• safeguarding Australia

Research conduct and ethics

ARC-funded research should comply with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research.

Research involving humans or animals must comply with the National Health and Medical Research Council codes.

See also The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2007.

Excellent research

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

The outcomes of excellent research are too numerous to count, but we are all its beneficiaries. For example, in our every day lives, many of us:

• use medicine
• travel by car, train, aeroplane
• enjoy TV, CDs, DVDs, iPods, Xboxes, computers, digital cameras
• work, play, communicate, socialise and buy things on the internet and using email
• use EFTPOS, electricity, mobile phones and vending machines
• brush our teeth with toothpaste, use deodorant, wash our hair and flush the toilet
• eat foods grown with the aid of fertilisers or manufactured by machines
• have the luxury of central heating or air conditioning
• exercise on the latest equipment at a gym
• toast sandwiches, drink coffee made with a coffee machine or zap leftovers in a microwave
• wear weather-appropriate, activity-appropriate or just plain old comfortable clothes made with natural and synthetic fibres, or a mix of both, to meet specific needs
• use a remote control for just about anything and everything

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

Thinking 'big picture', we can:

• travel into outer space
• grow new human tissue with the aid of stem cells
• modify genes
• predict the weather
• get a new heart, lungs or kidney
• 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 the reason we can do all of these things, of course, is research.

ARC-funded research is excellent research. That is, the ARC funds only the best of the best research proposals it receives and, as a result, has contributed to some of Australia’s most important discoveries, developments and commercial successes.

To read about some of the research programs supported by the ARC, visit Research in Action.

To track major events relating to Australia's research funding and policy, visit Media Releases.

To access the ARC's quarterly newsletter, which includes a CEO column, latest news, funding statistics and feature articles on ARC-funded research, visit Discovery Newsletters.

And to read other stories about ARC-funded research, visit Feature Articles.

Glossary

For an explanation of research terms, visit the Glossary.

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