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The Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) scheme provides focused research support for early career researchers in both teaching and research, and research-only positions.
The objectives of the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award scheme are to:
Applications for funding commencing in 2024 opened on 14 October 2022 and closed on 9 December 2022. Applications were submitted through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Research Management System (RMS). This report outlines outcomes from the selection process for that round.
These outcomes are based on advice from the ARC Selection Advisory Committee (SAC) which:
and, advice from the ARC’s National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP) Eligibility Committee which:
This report reflects the outcomes approved by the Minister. Unless otherwise specified, data represented in this report exclude withdrawn applications.
All applications that meet the eligibility criteria for the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2024 were assessed and merit ranked using the following assessment criteria:
Describe the:
Describe the potential benefits including the:
If the project involves Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research describe:
The ARC assessment process for Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2024 involved 69 College of Experts members across five discipline panels and was managed in RMS. A total of 3643 independent assessors’ reports were submitted to the ARC.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards are funded for three consecutive years on a full-time basis. The annual salary contribution that may be awarded is fixed at $109,079 (2022$), including 30 per cent on-costs. In addition, the ARC may provide up to $50,000 in project costs per annum.
The ARC received a total of 1024 applications for Discovery Early Career Researcher Award for funding commencing in 2024, of which one application was withdrawn.
Two hundred Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards are approved for funding commencing in 2024, shown in Table 1. The overall success rate for Discovery Early Career Researcher Award for funding commencing in 2024 is 19.6 per cent. A comparison of success rates and funding amounts is shown in Table 1.
Of the unsuccessful applications in 2024, 7 were found not to meet eligibility requirements.
Table 1. Comparison of application numbers, success rates, requested and allocated funds for approved Discovery Early Career Researcher Award applications from 2023 to 2024
A summary of outcomes by discipline panel is shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Application numbers, success rates and requested and allocated funds for approved Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2024 applications by discipline
*BSB – Biological Sciences and Biotechnology; EIC – Engineering, Information and Computing Sciences, HCA – Humanities and Creative Arts; MPCE – Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences; SBE – Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences
A summary of outcomes by Administering Organisation is shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Numbers of applications and success rates for approved Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2024 applications by Administering Organisation
Of the 1023 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award candidates in this round, 436 were female, 575 were male, and 12 chose not to specify their gender. The success rate for female, male and unspecified candidates is 21.8 per cent, 17.9 per cent and 16.7 per cent, respectively.
Success rates of Discovery Early Career Researcher Award candidates by career age and gender in the current Discovery Early Career Researcher Award round are presented in Figure 1. Discovery Early Career Researcher Award candidates who did not provide gender information (1.2 per cent) are not represented in the figure below.
At the closing time of submission of applications, of the 1023 candidates, 800 were within five years of the award of their PhD and 223 candidates were beyond five years of the award of their PhD. To be eligible to apply for a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, the latter group of researchers had their significant career interruptions certified by their Administering Organisation.
Of the approved Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards, 157 candidates were within five years of the award of their PhD and 43 candidates were beyond five years of the award of their PhD.
Figure 1. Participation and success rate of candidates in Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2024 by gender and career age*^
* Career age is calculated as years since PhD based on the earliest qualification held by the applicant. ^ Calculated career age does not take career interruptions into consideration.
Applications were open to Eligible Organisations to nominate candidates who are promising early career researchers, resident either within Australia or overseas (Table 4).
Table 4. Citizenship/residency status of Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2024 candidates and approved Awardees
Note: All totals and percentages are shown using rounded figures, and as such may not sum.
Among 1023 of the applications considered, applicants foreshadowed 2192 instances of collaboration with researchers in 93 overseas locations. Of the applications approved for funding, 178 foreshadowed 478 instances of collaboration with researchers in 58 overseas locations (Figure 2).
Figure 2. International collaborations by location in approved Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2024 applications*
*The top 10 international collaboration locations are listed in Figure 2 and the remaining are grouped in the ‘Other’ category