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Linkage Projects
Round 1
Selection Report for Funding Commencing in 2006

Overview

The Linkage Projects scheme funds collaborative projects between University researchers and Collaborating Organisations. Applications in Round One for projects commencing in January 2006 closed on 4 May 2005.  This report outlines outcomes from the selection process for that round.

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Objectives

As indicated in the funding rules for this round (released in early 2005), Linkage Projects aims to:

  • encourage and develop long-term strategic research alliances between higher education organisations and other organisations, in order to apply advanced knowledge to problems and/or to provide opportunities to obtain national economic, social or cultural benefits;
  • support collaborative research on issues of benefit to regional and rural communities;
  • enhance the scale and focus of  research in National Priority Areas;
  • foster opportunities for postdoctoral researchers to pursue internationally competitive research in collaboration with organisations outside the higher education sector, targeting those who have demonstrated a clear commitment to high-quality research;
  • provide outcome-oriented research training to prepare high-calibre postgraduate research students; and
  • produce a national pool of world-class researchers to meet the needs of the broader Australian innovation system.

Research project costs are supported under Linkage Projects scheme, as well as:

  • Australian Postdoctoral Fellowships Industry (APDI) for researchers with less than three years’ postdoctoral experience;
  • Australian Postgraduate Awards Industry (APAI, or known as APAI-IT for those in information technology) for postgraduate research students studying towards a Masters or PhD award; and
  • Linkage Industry Fellowships (LIF) which provide support for costs involved in a temporary transfer from one of the eligible higher education organisations listed on an application to one of the collaborating organisations on that application or vice versa.

A single application to Linkage Projects may contain research project costs and one or more of the component costs above.

This report includes summary statistics for those Linkage Projects applications that involve project, APAI, and/or fellowship funding (LP applications), as well as those applications primarily seeking APAI stipends (so-called APAI-only, or LA applications).

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Selection process

The College of Experts assessed applications in two ways depending on the level of support sought in the application.

Where an applicant sought funding from the ARC to support fellowships, project costs associated with personnel, equipment, maintenance and/or travel, of more than $150,000 over project life, the ARC and its College of Experts:

  • assigned independent readers/assessors to review applications;
  • sought applicants' comments on assessors' reports;
  • ranked each application relative to the others on the basis of the application, the assessors reports and applicant's response to these assessments; and
  • assessed and recommended budgets, and prepared funding recommendations.

About 37% of applications requested funding of less than $150,000 over the proposed project life. External assessment was not sought in these cases. The ARC and the College of Experts ranked each application relative to the others on the basis of the application and prepared funding recommendations.

Following receipt of the College of Experts report the ARC Board submitted recommendations to the Minister for his approval.

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Selection criteria

Selection criteria and corresponding weights for Linkage Projects applications are:

Investigators' track record (20%)
Project content

  • significance and innovation (25%)
  • approach and training (20%)
  • national benefit (10%)
  • commitment from industry partner (25%)

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National Research Priorities

Applicants in this round identified 477 out of a total of 529 applications (90%) as being in one of the national research priority areas. Within those approved for funding, applications in priority areas represented 92% by number, and are to receive 97% of total approved funding.

Table 1: Numbers and success rates by National Research Priority Areas

Priority Area
Applications received
Applications approved
Success rate
Approved funds over project life
None
52
15
28.8%
$1,942,541
An Environmentally Sustainable Australia
139
55
39.6%
$23,446,778
Promoting and Maintaining Good Health
151
49
32.5%
$11,397,601
Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries
144
54
37.5%
$16,118,227
Safeguarding Australia
43
21
48.8%
$5,619,243
Total priority applications
477
179
37.5%
$56,581,849
% within priority areas
90%
92%
-
97%

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Summary of outcomes

In this round the ARC received a total of 535 applications, of which 6 were withdrawn after applications closed. Of the 529 remaining applications, 95 primarily sought an APAI stipend (APAI-only applications) and 434 were applications seeking substantial project support, as well as, in many cases, APAI, APDI or LIF places. In the tables and text below, the following labels are used to distinguish statistics:

LP - figures for the 434 applications seeking project support

LA - figures for the 95 APAI-only applications

Linkage  - figures for entire Linkage Projects scheme

The number of APAI-only applications has been steadily declining in recent rounds of Linkage Projects – they represent only 18% of applications in this round, compared to 24% in the previous round, and figures approaching 30% or 40% in recent years. Most applicants are now requesting substantially higher (and increasing) levels of funding support in this scheme. The competitiveness of the remaining APAI-only applications in this round is low, with a historically low success rate (see below).

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Approved Funding

A total of 194 (36.7%) applications are approved for funding, with an overall ARC commitment over their lives of $58.5M. The overall success rate of 36.7% represents a decrease on the success rate of 42.9% in the previous Round, primarily due to significant shift towards larger funding requests and approvals in this round.

For larger applications (LP), 177 of 434 (40.8 %) are approved for funding, representing an ARC commitment of $56.6M. For APAI-only applications (LA), 17 of 95 (17.9 %) are approved for funding, representing an ARC commitment of $1.9M over the life of these projects.

Table 2: Success rates for Linkage Projects Round One 2006

No of applications
LP
LA
Linkage
Received
434
95
529
Approved
177
17
194
Success Rate
40.8%
17.9%
36.7%

Table 3: Success rates for Round Two 2005 and Round One 2006

Component
Round Two 2005 for projects commencing in July 2005
Round One for projects commencing in January 2006
LP
45.8%
40.8%
LA
33.8%
17.9%
Linkage
42.9%
36.7%

Table 4: Numbers and Success Rates for Linkage Round One 2006 by Discipline Area

Discipline Group *
Applications received
Applications approved
Success rate
Requested funds over project life
Approved
funds over project life
BSB
108
38
35.2%
$34,454,378
$10,877,900
EE
76
29
38.2%
$32,900,786
$17,702,200
HCA
65
23
35.4%
$13,951,707
$5,342,734
MIC
60
22
36.7%
$15,091,072
$5,401,725
PCG
39
15
38.5%
$12,831,067
$5,371,361
SBE
181
67
37.0%
$39,898,112
$13,828,470
Total
529
194
36.7%
$149,127,122
$58,524,390

* BSB = Biological Sciences and Biotechnology; EE – Engineering and Environmental Sciences; HCA = Humanities and Creative Arts; MIC = Mathematics, Information and Communication Sciences; PCG = Physics, Chemistry and Geoscience; SBE = Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences

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Grant size

The average first-year funding per project for LP Round One is $100,964 (82.7% of average first-year request on funded applications), and for LA is $31,337 (95.8% of average first-year request on funded applications). The overall Linkage average first-year funding per project in Round One is $94,862 (83% of average first-year request on funded applications). This round shows significant increases in both first-year and whole-of-life funding, due both to increasing application requests in general, and the presence of a very large application received under the revised rules concerning maximum level of funding introduced in this round of Linkage Projects.

Table 5: First-year funding, Round Two 2005 and Round One 2006

Component
 Round Two 2005 for projects commencing in July  2005 Round One  for projects commencing in January  2006
Average first year funding
Percentage of average first year request
Average first year funding
Percentage of average first year request
LP
$91,342
79.4%
$100,964
82.7%
LA
$28,672
93.4%
$31,337
95.8%
Linkage
$79,358
80.2%
$94,862
83.0%

Table 6: Average total funding for LP, LA and Linkage Projects Round One 2006

Component
Round Two 2005 for projects commencing in July  2005
Round One for projects commencing in January  2006
LP
$274,056
$320,105
LA
$99,448
$109,757
Linkage
$240,665
$301,672

These amounts include possible half-year APAI extensions in Year 4.

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Outcomes by Organisation

The following table shows application numbers and funding, by Organisation for the Linkage Projects scheme.

Table 7: Outcomes by Organisation for Linkage Projects  Round One 2006

Administering organisation
Received
Approved
Success rate %
Approved
funding over project life
Total Partner Contribution
Australian Catholic University
6
0
0
$0
$0
Charles Darwin University
9
5
56
$1,582,101
$2,735,472
Charles Sturt University
10
5
50
$571,858
$741,176
Curtin University of Technology
10
2
20
$440,232
$427,632
Deakin University
15
5
33
$1,217,970
$1,280,264
Edith Cowan University
4
2
50
$264,600
$401,888
Griffith University
17
4
24
$1,245,927
$3,021,152
James Cook University
5
1
20
$102,775
$106,000
La Trobe University
13
3
23
$582,672
$504,678
Macquarie University
5
2
40
$330,600
$397,186
Monash University
32
10
31
$2,889,287
$3,227,080
Murdoch University
9
2
22
$816,525
$870,292
Queensland University of Technology
28
8
29
$2,105,891
$2,648,848
RMIT University
22
9
41
$2,436,398
$2,738,460
Southern Cross University
6
1
17
$231,000
$432,340
Swinburne University of Technology
4
1
25
$160,000
$260,910
The Australian National University
23
13
57
$3,745,402
$5,042,527
The Flinders University of South Australia
11
2
18
$363,000
$543,538
The University of Adelaide
19
9
47
$2,250,435
$3,642,441
The University of Melbourne
45
19
42
$4,512,415
$6,283,986
The University of New England
5
1
20
$168,325
$179,565
The University of New South Wales
47
22
47
$7,235,150
$9,377,236
The University of Newcastle
10
3
30
$661,551
$777,500
The University of Queensland
37
16
43
$4,439,000
$8,222,279
The University of Sydney
37
14
38
$3,710,263
$5,462,140
The University of Western Australia
15
5
33
$1,386,617
$2,190,611
University of Ballarat
2
1
50
$847,881
$1,266,023
University of Canberra
3
1
33
$383,474
$586,607
University of South Australia
21
9
43
$10,106,538
$16,393,023
University of Southern Queensland
6
0
0
$0
$0
University of Tasmania
10
4
40
$878,546
$885,778
University of Technology, Sydney
18
7
39
$1,044,103
$1,655,062
University of the Sunshine Coast
2
0
0
$0
$0
University of Western Sydney
9
5
56
$1,290,140
$1,243,720
University of Wollongong
13
2
15
$463,325
$635,090
Victoria University
1
1
100
$60,389
$60,400
Total
529
194
37
$58,524,390
$84,240,904

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Components

The major components that can be funded in Linkage Projects include APAIs, APAI‑ITs, APDIs, Linkage Industry Fellowships (LIF) and other collaborative research grant (CRG) funding. The following table shows overall numbers and funding for these components.

Table 8: Linkage Projects component numbers and funding Round One 2006

Component
Number requested
Number funded
Success rate %
APAI
392
137
34.9%
APAI-IT
35
24
68.6%
APDI
25
11
44.0%
LIF
2
0
0.0%
CRG
458
177
38.6%

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LIF

The application Round One applications included two requests for Linkage Industry Fellowships (LIF). Neither is funded.

APDI

The Linkage Projects Round One applications included requests for 25 APDI places, of which 11 (44.0%) are approved for funding.

APAI-IT

Within Linkage Projects, there is a requirement to fund at least 50 APAI places in the fields of Information Technology and Communications. This requirement needs to be met over both rounds for 2006 funding.  In Linkage Projects Round One 24 places are approved for funding.

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