Crafting your Future Fellowship application – insights from a successful applicant
Here we are again folks – the final round of Future Fellowships, as confirmed by the ARC. A final opportunity for our mid-career stars to scrub up their finery, put on their Sunday best, and throw their hats in the ARC funding ring.
With FT26 outcomes arrived and FT27 opening in late September, now's the time to start thinking about whether you are planning to apply (or re-apply).
We had a chat with one of our favourite past applicants, Professor David Byrne, University of Melbourne, about his experience preparing and writing a successful Future Fellowship. GrantEd supported Prof Byrne with his successful FT25 project ‘Information foundations of monopoly power in the digital age’ (Applied Economics), which aims to determine how digital information-sharing affects demand, pricing, competition, and welfare, using the retail fuel industry as a real-world laboratory.
Q: What was the most challenging part of the application process for you?
Getting from the ‘data dump’ of the project – my lengthy track record, alignment with institutional priorities and support, and project execution ideas – to a completely end-to-end streamlined application that balanced feasibility, ambition, and innovation.
Q: What's your advice for aspiring applicants?
Stick with it. The majority of my ARC applications have been rejected, including previous fellowship applications. It's hard to be rejected, but you learn with each application, regardless of the outcome, and your future applications are better for it.
Q: If you could give your pre-submission self one particular piece of advice, what would it be?
Start early. This has been a key learning for me over time, as you need the time to get feedback on the many dimensions of your project to ultimately align with the ARC's current expectations and rules while still conveying a compelling argument for ‘why this project’, ‘why you’, and ‘why now’.
Q: What do you think made your application stand out?
It was built inside-out from the strengths of my research program in a way that non-experts could understand while still exciting experts.
Q: How many drafts did you go through and how many hours did you invest before you were happy with it?
Numerous. I would guess I worked on the eventual successful application for 4 months, starting about 6 weeks before the scheme was announced, using the previous year's FT scheme to get a very early head start. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I had more than 25 drafts at some point. But there's more than just the hours of investment: all of my previously successful and rejected ARC applications informed the eventual successful FT25 application in some way.
Q: Is it helpful to put yourself in the mind of the assessor when putting together your application?
Absolutely. To implement this, I had about 12 colleagues and research support team members at my university iteratively provide feedback on various parts of the application. These gave assessor-like comments on the early versions of the application.
Q: How are things going for you now with your successful FT?
Great! It's off to a hot start and slightly ahead of schedule, project and impact-wise. But there is a lot to do, so I'm keeping at it to stay ahead of schedule, on budget, and to generate cutting-edge results that tangibly enhance the competitiveness of the Australian economy in the data-and-AI age we all live in.
Q: How did you find working with GrantEd?
GrantEd provided me with comprehensive, relevant, timely, and personalized feedback on my successful Future Fellowship application. Having their experts as my ‘teammates’ taught me a lot about grant writing, pushed me to continuously improve the application, and fundamentally enhanced its competitiveness.
We’re so grateful to David for his generosity in providing these insights.
Our top predictions for the upcoming round:
The instructions won't fundamentally change – so if you've been working already on your proposal and track record (ROPE) sections, or you’re planning a resubmission, you'll be in good stead.
Caveat - keep an eye out for any impact of ARC's recent signing of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). This declaration supports the need to eliminate the use of journal-based metrics such as journal impact factors in funding considerations. If you're currently using journal impact factors in your ROPE, this is your heads up that things are likely to change.
There'll be plenty of interest in this final round, so applicant numbers will likely be high, leading to very strong competition, even if, as in FT26, funding caps are removed.
Starting early and getting your ideas and plans in place now is your best strategy for preparing a competitive application. Even if you work well under pressure and often complete your funding applications at the last minute, spending time now will reap rewards later when you can relax and make sure that all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed before you press ‘Submit’.
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