The changing landscape of ARC fellowships and funding

The ARC Future Fellowships (FT26) are scheduled to open on 24 September, with submissions closing on 5 November. This is might be the last ever round of FTs. If you’re thinking of applying, read on to find out more about upcoming changes to ARC schemes and how this might be putting pressure on applicants in this final round.

Given how time-consuming preparing a fellowship application is and the relatively low chances of success (only 15% for FTs in the 2025 round!), you might want to consider if it is worth applying. Is your time better invested in developing a proposal or writing another paper? If the question is about competitiveness, then our free ‘Before you Start’ Guide provides benchmarking that can help you answer this question.

Another important factor to consider is the ARC’s planned changes to the National Competitive Grants Program – with this year likely to be the last round of FTs. While a core part of the ARC’s planned changes was to remove standalone fellowships and instead embed fellowships into project grants, feedback on these changes (>350 submissions; see our submission here has resulted in a revised plan. The revised plan includes ‘A standalone fellowship scheme for ECRs’. Assuming the current definition of an ECR (0-5 years post-PhD) still applies, this scheme would be similar to the current Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), making it unsuitable for FT-level applicants.

What is relevant to potential Future Fellows is the ARC’s statement that ‘Opportunities for mid-career and senior career researchers will focus on projects and mentorship rather than salaried fellowships’. In other words, it seems the ARC will not be funding the salaries of mid-career researchers (MCRs), putting MCRs in a potentially precarious position in terms of ongoing employment. An FT was a pathway to a permanent position thanks to the clause that the fellow needed to be offered a continuing position by the administering organisation at the end of the fellowship. Now we suspect that MCRs seeking funding from the ARC will need to already have a position that will at least last the duration of the proposed research.

In addition, given that many positions are combined of teaching and research it is also worth noting that in the original proposal the ARC said ‘Recipients can use their 2 years of funding flexibly to focus on their research at critical periods but will not be completely removed from the university workforce for the grant’s full duration. For example, fellowships may be used to support partial or semester-long teaching buyouts for recipients in fixed term or continuing roles’. It seems the original vision was for MCRs to use their fellowships to buy their way out of teaching. This would have represented a break from tradition where teaching buyouts tended to be cut from the budgets of project grants. If it is correct that MCR fellowships will be removed, then the possibility that this tradition will continue means there might be no way for MCRs to gain an extended break from teaching to focus on research. 

What does this mean for you? If this is the last round of FTs, then it might be your best chance of obtaining an extended period to focus on your research. For those who lack a continuing position it might also offer the best chance of obtaining one, as the removal of ARC funding for MCR salaries is likely to increase the competition for continuing positions going forward. Now, more than ever, you want to buy a ticket in the funding lottery. But you also want to increase your odds of success by putting in the best application you can as the number of applicants will almost certainly increase in this potentially final round. With the number of FTs capped at 100, the success rate will almost certainly decrease, making it even harder to stand out from the crowd.

What’s the good news, you might be asking? The good news is that the GrantEd approach works. Over the last 10 years, FT applications we reviewed were 34% more likely to be funded than those we hadn’t. Given the stakes, it is even more important to book in early for a review, schedule a workshop, access our on demand learning or sign up for our online Sprint course on writing your Future Fellowship application.

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Contact us at hello@thegrantedgroup.com.au we’d love to hear from you and see how we can help get your FT over the line.