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The primary goal of the Industry Fellowship Program is to create a pathway to support academic researchers in establishing careers in industry, and industry-based researchers to work in university settings, with the aim of increased two-way mobility and skill-building in research collaboration, translation and commercialisation. The Schemes will also drive research collaboration, translation and commercialisation outcomes across a range of industry settings.
The objectives of the Industry Laureate Fellowships scheme are to:
Applications for Industry Laureate Fellowships for funding commencing in 2023 opened on 6 October 2022 and closed on 17 November 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 recommendations are based on advice from the ARC Selection Advisory Committee (SAC) which:
Advice was also provided 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 Unless otherwise specified, data represented in this report exclude withdrawn applications.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 Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 were assessed and merit ranked using the following assessment criteria:
If the project involves Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander research, additional criteria include:
The ARC assessment process for Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 involved 15 Selection Advisory Committee members comprising of members from the ARC College of Experts and experts from Industry on one multi-discipline panel. The process was managed in RMS. In addition, independent assessors submitted a total of 373 reports to the ARC to support the assessment process.
Industry Laureate Fellowships projects are funded for 4 to 5 years on a full-time basis, subject to sufficient scheme funding, the provisions of the Australian Research Council Act 2001 (the ARC Act) and continued satisfactory progress of the Industry Laureate Fellowships project.
It is a requirement of the Grant Guidelines for the Industry Fellowship Program (Variation No. 1, 2022 edition) for the Administering Organisation to provide a Level E professorial appointment (or equivalent) and salary for the duration of the Australian Laureate Fellowship. The salary provided by the ARC of $173,758 (2022$) per annum including 30 per cent on-costs contributes to that salary.
In addition to the Industry Laureate Fellowship salary and salary-related (on-cost) support, the ARC will provide Industry Laureate Fellows with:
The ARC received a total of 116 applications for Industry Laureate Fellowships for funding commencing in 2023.
Eight Industry Laureate Fellows are approved for funding commencing in 2023, shown in Table 1. The overall success rate for Industry Laureate Fellowships for funding commencing in 2023 is 6.9%. The total indicative funding approved is $27,709,549 over 5 financial years (Tables 2 and 3). A break-down of success rates and funding amounts is shown in Table 2.
Of the unsuccessful applications in 2023, two were found not to meet eligibility requirements.
Table 1. Industry Laureate Fellows approved for funding commencing in 2023.
* Biographies for the 8 Industry Laureate Fellows will be available on the ARC Website.
Table 2. Application numbers, success rates, requested and allocated funds for approved Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 applications.
Table 3. Indicative funds for approved Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 applications
A summary of outcomes by discipline panel is shown in Table 4.
Table 4. Application numbers, success rates and requested and allocated funds for approved Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 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 Economics Sciences
In addition to the $27,709,549 of ARC indicative funding approved, the 8 projects will also receive cash and in-kind contributions from their administering organisations and their industry partners. These participating organisations will contribute a total of $36,152,501.
The Administering Organisations of the 8 applications approved for funding are:
Australian companies and Australian federal and state government entities will participate in the approved projects as Key Industry and Other Industry Partners. International organisations will also contribute as Other Industry Partners.
In total, there are 18 unique Key Industry Partners or Other Industry Partners involved with the 8 projects approved for funding, giving an average of 2.25 Industry partners involved in each project. Together, they have pledged a total (cash and in-kind) of $18,747,220. This represents 68 cents from Industry Partners for every dollar funded by the ARC.
The Industry Partner contributions in these categories for Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 applications approved for funding are shown below in Table 5.
Table 5. Partner Organisation contributions by sector for approved Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 applications
Note: All percentages are shown using rounded figures, and as such may not sum to 100%.
These partnerships form congruent and/or complementary linkages in Fields of Research (FoR). A summary of the FoR categories identified by applicants of approved applications and the total Industry Partners contributions are shown below in Table 6.
Table 6. Application data by Field of Research category for Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023
* Based on the primary FoR
A summary of the ANZSIC categories that best represent the proposed research of the approved applications are shown below in Table 7.
Table 7. Application data by Australia and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) category for Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023
Of the 116 Industry Laureate Fellowship candidates in this round, 20 were female, 95 were male and 1 chose not to specify their gender. The success rate for female, male and unspecified candidates is 15%, 5.2% and 0% respectively.
Success rates of Industry Laureate Fellowship candidates by career age and gender in the current Industry Laureate Fellowship round are presented in Figure 1. Candidates who did not provide gender information (0.8%) and candidates who did not specify the date of completion of their PhD or who do not hold a PhD (0%) are not represented in the figure below.
Figure 1. Participation and success rate of candidates in Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 by gender and career age*^
* Career age is calculated as years since PhD. The earliest PhD award date was used where there was more than 1 PhD.^ Calculated career age does not take career interruptions into consideration.
Applications were open to Eligible Organisations to nominate candidates who are world-class researchers of international repute, resident either within Australia or overseas (Table 8).
Table 8. Citizenship/residency status of Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 candidates and approved Awardees
Note: All totals and percentages are shown using rounded figures, and as such may not sum.
In the 8 applications approved for funding, a total of 70 research student places will be filled as a result of the funded projects, with a total of 39 PhD student places, 6 Masters student places and 25 Honours student places.
In the 116 applications considered; applicants foreshadowed 203 instances of collaboration with researchers in 41 overseas locations. Of the applications approved for funding, applicants foreshadowed 6 instances of collaboration with researchers in 5 overseas locations (Figure 2).
Figure 2. International collaborations by location in approved Industry Laureate Fellowships 2023 applications