About the ARC
The Australian Research Council (ARC) is a Commonwealth entity within the Australian Government. It was established as an independent body under the Australian Research Council Act 2001. The ARC reports to an Australian Government Minister, currently the Minister for Education.
The ARC’s purpose is to "grow knowledge and innovation for the benefit of the Australian community through funding the highest quality research, assessing the quality, engagement and impact of research, and providing advice on research matters".
The ARC supports the highest-quality fundamental and applied research and research training. We encourage national competition across all disciplines outside of clinical and other medical research. We advise the Government on research matters and administer the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP), delivering around $800 million per year to the most dynamic researchers in Australia.
Our grants are competitively awarded to individuals, research teams and large-scale centres through 2 broad arms: the Discovery Program, which supports individuals and small teams, and the Linkage Program, which creates links between universities, industry and other partners.
We deliver the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), which assesses research quality within Australia's higher education institutions. ERA provides a national stocktake, by research discipline, against international benchmarks.
We administer the Engagement and Impact Assessment, (EI) which evaluates the engagement of researchers with end-users and shows how universities are translating their research into economic, social, environmental, cultural and other public good.
Clinical and other medical research is primarily supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
For more information on the ARC refer to:
- ARC Annual Report
The ARC Annual Report summarises research outcomes and the return on investment in research in Australia. - ARC Corporate Plan
The ARC Corporate Plan sets out the ARC’s vision for the next three years. It is updated annually. - ARC Employee Census 2021* – PDF format
The ARC employee census results for 2021. - Letter of Expectations from Minister to ARC
- ARC Statement of Intent
*All efforts are made to ensure that information on this website is accessible and complies with WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards. Please contact communications@arc.gov.au if you encounter any issues retrieving data provided on this page.
History of ARC
The Australian Research Council has a long history – founded in 2001 under the Australian Research Council Act 2001 it is directly descended from the 1965 Australian Research Grants Committee (ARGC). ARC has functions which date to the 1946 Commonwealth Universities Research Grants Committee.