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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 across a range of industry settings.
The objectives of the Mid-Career Industry Fellowship scheme are to:
Applications for funding commencing in 2024 opened on 5 July 2023 and closed on 16 August 2023. Applications were submitted through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Research Management System (RMS). This report outlines outcomes from the ARC A/g Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to the Minister.
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 Unless otherwise specified, data represented in this report excludes withdrawn applications.
All applications that meet the eligibility criteria for the Mid-Career Industry Fellowships 2024 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 Mid-Career Industry Fellowships 2024 involved 11 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 329 reports to the ARC to support the assessment process.
Mid-Career Industry Fellowship projects are funded for 2 to 4 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 Mid-Career Industry Fellowship project.
It is a requirement of the Grant Guidelines for the Industry Fellowship Program – Variation No. 1 for the Administering Organisation to employ the Mid-Career Industry Fellow at a minimum of Academic Level C (or equivalent) for the project activity period. The annual salary provided by the ARC of $215,410 (2024$) per year includes 30 per cent on-costs.
In addition to the Mid-Career Industry Fellowship salary and salary-related (on-cost) support, the ARC will provide the Mid-Career Industry Fellows with project funding not exceeding $290,000 over the duration of the grant.
The ARC received a total of 109 applications for Mid-Career Industry Fellowships for funding commencing in 2024.
25 Mid-Career Industry Fellows are approved for funding commencing in 2024, shown in Table 1. The overall success rate for Mid-Career Industry Fellowships for funding commencing in 2024 is 22.9 per cent. The total indicative funding approved is $25.7 million over 4 financial years (Tables 2 and 3). A break-down of success rates and funding amounts is shown in Table 2.
Of the unsuccessful applications, one was found not to meet eligibility requirements.
Table 1. Mid-Career Industry Fellows approved for funding commencing in 2024
Table 2. Application numbers, success rates, requested and allocated funds for approved Mid-Career Industry Fellowship applications from 2023 to 2024
25
25,695,428
Table 3. Indicative funds for approved Mid-Career Industry Fellowship 2024 applications.
A summary of outcomes by discipline panel is shown in Table 4.
Table 4. Application numbers, success rates, requested and allocated funds for approved Mid-Career Industry Fellowship 2024 applications.
58
20
10
109
*BSB = Biological Sciences and Biotechnology; EIC = Engineering, Information and Computing Sciences; HSE = Humanities and Creative Arts, Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences; MPCE = Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences.
In addition to the $25.7 million of ARC indicative funding approved, the 25 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 $35.0million.
The Administering Organisations of the 25 applications approved for funding are:
Table 5. Partner Organisation contributions for approved Mid-Career Industry Fellowship applications by Administering Organisation
Australian companies, government entities and non-profit organisations 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 45 unique Key Industry Partners or Other Industry Partners involved with the 25 projects approved for funding, giving an average of 2 Industry Partners involved in each project.
Together, they have pledged a total (cash and in-kind) of $19.8 million. This represents 77 cents from Industry Partners for every dollar funded by the ARC.
Table 6. Partner Organisation contributions by sector for approved Mid-Career Industry Fellowship 2024 applications.
Note: All percentages are shown using rounded figures, and as such may not sum to 100%.
The genders of the applicants and awardees are:
Table 7. Gender of Mid-Career Industry Fellowship 2024 candidates and approved awardees.
Applications were open to Eligible Organisations to nominate candidates who are world-class researchers of international repute, residing either within Australia or overseas (Table 8).
Table 8. Citizenship/residency status of Mid-Career Industry Fellowship 2024 candidates and approved Awardees.
Note: All totals and percentages are shown using rounded figures, and as such may not sum.
Among 109 of the applications considered, applicants foreshadowed 119 instances of collaboration with researchers in 27 overseas locations. Of the applications approved for funding, applicants foreshadowed 25 instances of collaboration with researchers in 13 overseas locations (Figure 1).
Figure 1. International collaborations by location in approved Mid-Career Industry Fellowships 2024 applications