Date: 12 January 2026 The Australian Research Council (ARC) has published updates to the 2025–26 National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP) Scheme Calendar. These updates reflect enhancements to the ARC due diligence and research security processes, which are required to meet new legislative requirements arising from amendments to the Australian Research Council Act 2001. These amendments introduce additional requirements where matters of national security, defence or international relations arise. To meet these legislative requirements, the ARC has been working closely with relevant government agencies and institutions to strengthen our research security framework. Key changes include: earlier and enhanced research security screening more detailed engagement with Administering Organisations updated expectations regarding the disclosure of foreign affiliations stronger alignment between research security, eligibility and grant compliance mechanisms. These reforms align with the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security’s Inquiry into national security risks affecting the Australian higher education and research sector (2022), and the University Foreign Interference Taskforce’s Guidelines to Counter Foreign Interference in the Australian University Sector (2021). As a result of these enhanced processes, indicative announcement date windows on the NCGP Scheme Calendar have been updated to reflect announcement periods of up to 3 months. The ARC recognises the importance of timely outcomes for the sector and we will continue to communicate any changes as soon as possible. In addition, the ARC confirms that the dates for Australian Laureate Fellowships 2027 (FL27) and Discovery Indigenous 2027 (IN27) previously announced in December 2025 are available on the NCGP Scheme Calendar. Further details, including Grant Guidelines and documentation will be provided in due course. We encourage Research Offices to refer to the website for the most current information and to share this update with relevant applicants within your institutions.