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Types of funding cheat sheet
Funding for research is available in all shapes and sizes
Do you know the difference between Category 1 and Category 2 funding? Are you aware that you could look for contract research and consultancies as well as grant funding? We unravel the complexities and nomenclature of the research funding landscape.
Key takeaways
- The research funding landscape is broad and offers an exciting array of possibilities.
- Research funding can come in different forms, from different places, at different scales, and for different purposes.
- Explore opportunities, check websites regularly, and sign up for alerts where you can.
Read time: 9 mins
The research funding landscape
Research funding can come from many places and for different intended purposes. The breadth of possibilities is often called the ‘funding landscape’. There are hundreds of funding opportunities, but only a small number will be of relevance to you. This page gives you an overview of the different kinds of funding and points of entry to aggregated listings of grants and other opportunities, which will help you quickly access what’s on offer.
Modes of funding
1. Research grants and fellowships
This mode of funding is probably what you’re most familiar with. The value of grants can range from a few thousand dollars to several millions. Some grants let you research whatever you want, but most are closely tied to the priorities of the funder. Any resulting intellectual property (IP) is typically owned by the University. Research grants are also sometimes known as ‘sponsored research’.
Grants fund research activities and are usually awarded to teams, whereas fellowships fund salaries and are awarded to an individual. However, some fellowships also come with research funding and investigator salaries can sometimes be funded from a grant.
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2. Contract (or commissioned) research
This occurs when an organisation (private, public, or non-government) invites a researcher (or research team) to undertake a specific project, usually of the organisation’s devising but sometimes jointly devised with the researcher(s). These projects produce deliverables for the contracting organisation, but may also allow researchers to publish peer-reviewed papers, unless constrained by IP considerations. Ownership of IP is negotiated between the contracting and contracted parties.
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3. Consultancies
Consultancy services include analysis and advisory services, the development and delivery of specialised training materials, literature reviews, expert witness statements, report production, and so on. Essentially you provide your skills and expertise for a price. The organisation that engages you will probably own any IP generated, and it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to publish any peer-reviewed papers from consulting work.
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4. Tenders
This is when an organisation (private company, government department, non-government organisation) invites external parties to bid to undertake a project or offer services. The invitation is known as a Request for Tender (RFT), and it will ask for information about you (and your team, if applicable), how you would deliver the project or services, and how much it would cost. Preparing a tender bid is very different to writing a grant application, with markedly different conventions and application requirements.
Tender opportunities can be found in AusTender, the centralised, searchable repository of Australian Government business opportunities – i.e. requests for tenders, quotes, expressions of interest, information, or proposals. You can register to receive automatic notifications about forthcoming opportunities, which you can customise to your areas of interest.
Funding by sector
1. Federal government
Federal government agencies such as the Australian Research Council (ARC), National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and the Medical research Future Fund (MRFF) are responsible for most grant funding in Australia. But don’t overlook opportunities for funding offered by other federal bodies such as the Departments of Health & Age Care, Agriculture, Education, and Defence.
All federal government grants (forecast and current) can be accessed in one place, called GrantConnect. You can register to receive automatic notifications about forthcoming grants in your areas of interest.
2. State government
There are many schemes run by state government departments and agencies. These are usually designed to deliver benefits primarily to the state in question. To give you a flavour of this, NSW Government schemes may fund research to ‘build research capability in the state’ or ‘drive the state’s future strategic growth industries and research-led attraction of industry’.
All NSW Government grants and funding opportunities can be accessed via their website, but note that many are not for research so you will need to do some searching. For health and medical funding schemes, there is a dedicated Grants and Funding section on the NSW Health website.
3. Philanthropy
Some philanthropic foundations provide funding for research purposes. Most commonly this is for health and medical research, e.g. the Heart Foundation, Cancer Council, the Ian Potter Foundation. There are also donors (high-net-worth individuals) who may choose to fund research via a gift, but finding and engaging with such individuals should be done in partnership with University’s Development Office (UniKey required).
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4. Industry
Research funding from the private sector can come in the form of research contracts, consultancies and tenders. There are also ‘industry-facing’ research grants that involve industry partners, and usually require a cash and/or in-kind contribution from those partners. Such opportunities include those offered by primary industry bodies (UniKey required).
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5. Internal (University) funding
Internal funding is offered by the University, for University-employed researchers. These opportunities might be available from your school, faculty, MDI, internal network, or centrally from the Research Portfolio or similar. Internal funding tends to be smaller in scale than externally-competitive funding, but offers an excellent chance to get resources for new research or to seed relationships with collaborators. This might allow you to generate pilot data or increase competitiveness for a later external funding application.
Funding by location
1. Australian funding
This is funding that originates from any source in Australia (e.g. government funding, Australian philanthropic organisations, industry funding, etc). Australian funding can often support international projects, such as those investigating topics or issues in overseas countries and carried out in the field overseas.
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2. International funding
Foreign governments and non-government organisations such as international philanthropic organisations can also fund Australian researchers and research projects. This funding originates internationally and is different from funding that originates in Australia but supports international research projects. In some instances, Australian researchers and institutions can lead the application, whereas in others this is not allowed but sub-awards (non-lead applications) are permissible.
Major international government funders include UK Research and Innovation and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Examples of international foundations include the Michael J Fox foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Cancer Research UK.
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Funding by scale
There are funding schemes for everything from small, pilot studies that you can run on your own, to large research centres with complex structures involving multiple research institutions and industry partners.
1. Seed funding
Seed funding is used to kick-start new research by supporting small-scale preliminary work, sometimes with the express purpose of generating evidence to underpin a subsequent application for project funding. Seed funding may also be available to support research-related activities such as initiating and consolidating industry partnerships. There is no set amount for seed funding, but it typically ranges from around $5000 to $50,000. Seed-funding schemes are commonly offered within universities, but there are many external schemes too.
2. Project funding
Project-scale funding is what most researchers aspire to most of the time. The cost of a project can vary enormously – compare, for instance, a 3-year history project in which a sole ‘investigator’ conducts archival research, to a 5-year multi-site clinical trial involving many investigators and enrolling hundreds of patients. What they have in common, however, is a single focus or objective. The vast majority of funding schemes support project-scale research.
Note that a proposal for project-scale research is typically expected in applications for ECR fellowships.
3. Program funding
This is a step up from project funding. Instead of a single project, program funding will support a series of projects. Crucially, the projects must form a coherent, cohesive whole around a well-defined topic or issue. Although the program will require an overall leader, it is common for each project to have its own lead investigator and perhaps its own postdocs, PhDs, and research assistants. At this scale, governance and management structures and procedures become important considerations.
Note that a proposal for program-scale research is typically expected in applications for senior fellowships. For MCR fellowships, the expectation may range from project- to program-scale research.
4. Research centre
A few schemes are specifically intended to support the establishment of a research centre. The best-known schemes are ARC Centres of Excellence, Industrial Transformation Research Hubs and Industrial Transformation Training Centres, NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence, and industry-led Cooperative Research Centres.
The amount of funding is not necessarily greater than for a research program. For example, although ARC Centres of Excellence can attract up to $35 million over seven years, NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence are awarded only $2.5 million over five years. So what’s the difference between centre and program funding?
Program vs. centre funding
Essentially centres are conceived as hubs around which there will be an ongoing accretion of researchers, projects, students, and (other) funding. The research ‘program’ of a centre is therefore generally less fixed or predetermined; applications for centre funding usually propose a series of exemplar projects which are not the sum total of everything the centre will do. It is also expected that a proportion of centre funding will be allocated to activities that facilitate collaboration and cohesion between research teams and partner organisations, and to staff responsible for centre-wide management, outreach and other activities. Robust governance and management structures and procedures are paramount at this scale, and will typically include an advisory committee of external experts. For more information, see Scaling up funding.
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Australian Government HERDC research income categories
You may have heard that ARC and NHMRC grants are ‘Category 1’. There are in fact four categories of research income as defined by the Australian Government as part of the Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) annual reporting process, which is used to apportion government financial support for research across each eligible university. Some of the distinctions between categories and sub-categories are subtle, but below is a quick overview.
Category 1: Australian competitive grant R&D income
This includes ARC, NHMRC and MRFF grants as well as some other state and federal funding schemes. Nearly half the value of all research funding is through Category 1 grants.
Category 2: Other public sector R&D income
This is essentially all other public sector income besides Category 1. It comprises research income from federal and state government business enterprises, research income (including contract research) from state and local governments, and research income from partly government-owned or -funded bodies, as well as from CRCs in which the University is not a core participant or participant.
Category 3: Industry and other R&D income
This is any income that is not eligible under Category 1 or 2 and that comes from Australian and international private (for-profit) organisations or philanthropic (not-for-profit) organisations, as well as from international governments.
Category 4: Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) R&D income
This is income received from a CRC in which the University is a core participant.
This is essentially all other public sector income besides Category 1. It comprises research income from federal and state government business enterprises, research income (including contract research) from state and local governments, and research income from partly government-owned or -funded bodies, as well as from CRCs in which the University is not a core participant or participant.