FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
for schemes under the Discovery Program (2016 edition)
Version 2 Release date: 10 February 2017
· All participants should read the Funding Rules for schemes under the Discovery Programme (2016 edition). The scheme specific ‘Instructions to Applicants’ documents also contain important information for Research Office staff and individual participants preparing Proposals.
· The Australian Research Council (ARC) does not respond to queries from individual participants. Individual participants should direct all queries regarding ARC funding schemes to their Administering Organisation’s Research Office (or equivalent). If further information regarding any of the NCGP schemes is required, the Research Office should contact the NCGP inbox at: .
· Information regarding the Research Management System (RMS) is available at the ARC website, or by contacting for assistance.
· As soon as information regarding important scheme dates becomes available, the ARC website will be updated. The ARC will also notify the Research Administrators’ Network of any updates through tweets.
· Please note that this FAQ document only addresses the eligibility of proposals submitted under the Funding Rules for schemes under the Discovery Programme (2016 edition) (the Funding Rules)
Rules regarding Project limits for funding held under earlier Funding Rules may differ from those mentioned in this document.
· Questions regarding limits for currently-held funding should be directed to .
This Frequently Asked Questions document will be updated as required. Details of any amendments will be appended to this document.
CONTENTS
1. DISCOVERY EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER AWARD (DECRA) CANDIDATE – ELIGIBILITY 3
2. DISCOVERY PROJECTS (DP) 4
Appendix A — Changes to Document 5
1. DISCOVERY EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER AWARD (DECRA) CANDIDATE – ELIGIBILITY
1.1 Subsection D9.1.2 of the Funding Rules state that ‘the period of significant interruption must be at least equal to the period since the award of a PhD and the closing date and time for Proposals under this scheme.’ Does this mean that if my PhD was awarded on 1 March 2011, I need six years of career interruption to be eligible to apply?
No, the intent of subsection D9.1.2 of the Funding Rules is that candidates are required to have been awarded their PhD on or after 1 March 2012 or have sufficient career interruption to be commensurate with their PhD being awarded on or after 1 March 2012. This means that where a Candidate was awarded a PhD on 1 March 2011, the would only need one year of valid career interruption to be eligible to apply.
2. DISCOVERY PROJECTS (DP)
2.1 I’m having trouble fitting all my ARC grants and research outputs in the page limit for question F13 of the DP18 proposal form. Am I able to abbreviate some of the information in my response to fit within the page limit?
Yes, it is permissible for participants to abbreviate some of the entries in the table in F13. For example, in circumstances where there are many participants on a grant (such as LIEF), it is permissible to list only the Lead CI and any personnel common to the DP18 personnel with an abbreviation which indicates that there are other personnel on the grant (such as ‘et al.’). Likewise, for outputs where there are innumerable contributors, it may be possible to truncate certain types of information. Participants may also consider summarising their overall research outputs if they do not have room to include all publications. For example, it is permissible to say that they have ‘x number of refereed journal articles, y number of book chapters etc., and the following outputs are those that are most relevant to the current proposal …’ Please note that participants are required to list all ARC grants awarded to them in the last 10 years.
Appendix A — Changes to Document
Version 1 – released 3 February 2017
Version 2 – released 10 February 2017
· FAQ1.1 updated year in final sentence from 1 March 2012 to 1 March 2011 in line with the question.
· FAQ 2.1 added (I’m having trouble fitting all my ARC grants and research outputs in the page limit for question F13 of the DP18 proposal form. Am I able to abbreviate some of the information in my response to fit within the page limit?).
Frequently Asked Questions for schemes under the Discovery Program (2016 edition) 5