Faculty of Arts

Applicant's Guide to ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowships (APDs) and Other Fellowships and ARC Discovery-Project Grants

This is an introduction to the ARC grants application process. It can be read usefully by applicants for ARC Fellowships, particularly QEIIs and APFs, APD’s and Discovery-Projects. Those applicants need only make the obvious allowances for the difference in track record and level of experience. The first part of this guide concerns primarily the APD as part of a Discovery—Project, what it says is relevant to those applying for an APD(I) as part of a Linkage—Project. They will need, however, to work in addition on the industry links and on making their application read appropriately in that context.

Arts Research thanks Charles Sowerwine, Robyn Eckersley, Kat Ellinghaus, Ken Gelder and Peter Sherlock for their helpful comments, from which this guide has benefited immensely.

Linked on this page:

Links to other Arts Research pages:

Arts Research Grant Support

(see http://www.arts.unimelb.edu.au/staff/research/)

Common abbreviations

APD
Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship (really, the abbreviation should be APDF...)
ARC
Australian Research Council
CI
Chief Investigator
GAMS
Grant Application Management System (the ARC server)
MRO
Melbourne Research Office

Should I Apply for an APD?

An Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship (APD) is an excellent way of beginning your academic or research career. It involves the development of a newresearch project following on from your PhD. It pays you at a full-time Lecturer B rate for three years (or four years if you and the department agree that you will be a quarter-time lecturer—see below) to undertake the new project. It also provides project funding to cover travel, research materials, equipment, and even in some cases research assistance. As a condition of taking you on, the department through which you apply guarantees to administer your grant, to support you as a colleague, to provide you with an office, a computer and other normal staff amenities, and to assist you in completing your research.

An APD is not for everyone. The pressure to produce can seem intense, especially after the effort to complete a PhD. The position is necessarily limited in time. An APD is hard to win: in 2004, the government, amid much fanfare, increased funding and awarded 110 APDs nationally. This is exactly the number available before the Howard government cut funding eight years ago. Nevertheless, the possibility of producing a second major work and the prestige associated with an APD make it an avenue every completing PhD should consider very seriously.

An APD is a Discovery—Project of which the Chief Investigator (CI) is a recent PhD whose salary the ARC funds. An APD(I) is a Linkage—Project of which the Chief Investigator (CI) is a recent PhD whose salary an "industry partner" funds. In both cases, it is possible to apply for an APD as part of a larger Discovery— or Linkage—Project involving senior academics as well as to apply for the more common APD in which you are the sole CI. If the project and the team are strongly competitive, including your application in a larger Project may be a good strategy. It is your supervisor or some other senior academic who would normally suggest such a possibility.

The APD in which you are sole CI for a Discovery—Project is by far the most common variety and it is to this APD that this guide is primarily addressed.

General Information - APDs

Application for an APD is made as part of an application for a Discovery—Project. Application for an APD(I) is made as part of an application for a Linkage—Project. Applying for an APD involves making a Discovery— or Linkage—Project application and ticking the box for an APD. This has two important ramifications. First, don't go to web sites looking for APD; go looking for Discovery—Project or Linkage—Project. The APD is a sub-set, as it were. Second, remember that you have to make a case both for yourself as the investigator and for the project.

Applications for Discovery—Project grants, including those involving APDs, will be due in early February. If you are successful, you take up the grant on 1 January (ten months later) for three years (or four if you and your department agree on that option: see below).

Assuming no change in current eligibility, a post-graduate may apply for an APD to commence in 2007 if s/he has been awarded a PhD since 1 March 2003. The date is that of the letter from SGS notifying you that your thesis has been passed. (Those who have been awarded a PhD before 1 March 2003 may be able to make a case for career interruption and thus to apply for an APD. This requires application for an exemption before application for the APD. Check with the MRIO for the exact date. It is usually in January and always before the date for lodging applications.)

Those who have not yet been awarded their PhD may also apply if they are due to submit before the end of 2006. In that case, if an APD Fellowship offer is made, it will be contingent upon receiving official confirmation that the thesis has been submitted by 31 December 2006.

"Apply early, apply often." There is an element of chance in any such competition. Since one can apply only within a limited period of time, use every chance! There is an even bigger element of experience: your second application will be better than your first, so do your first as soon as you can.

The guidelines state that applicants "normally" go to other institutions than those in which they obtained or are obtaining their PhD, though it is possible to make a case for staying in the same institution in which you gained your PhD. It appears that these guidelines have not been applied strictly, if at all. So there is scope for making that case, but it must be made in terms of the quality of the environment by, for example, pointing to the concentration of expertise in your field and/or the special facilities or resources that are available in the department or Centre that you have nominated as your base. (Be positive about Melbourne rather than negative about other institutions, since the assessors must be from other institutions.)

The standard APD is a three-year, full-time position fully funded by the ARC. It is also possible, with your department's consent, to apply for a four-year APD funded 75% by the ARC and 25% by the department. If you apply for this and are successful, you become a quarter-time lecturer for the department during four years. The advantages? It gives you experience, looks good on your resume, and may make a favourable impression on readers: after all, the department is backing you with money! The disadvantages? It is certainly harder to balance a major research project with teaching and supervision, especially since quarter-time positions can often feel like more than quarter-time! This is only possible if your department agrees. Discuss with your shepherd and then, if you do wish to pursue this path, with the Head of your Department.

Developing a Topic – APDs and Other Fellowships

An exciting project is the key to a successful APD application. You need to find a topic that excites you and that you can do or rather that you can demonstrate your ability to do successfully. A good topic builds on the PhD. It has to be a new topic. The APD is not a writing-up award. But it should not be a radical departure. It should build on the methods as well as the content of your PhD, but do more and involve new methods.

Your project must be broad enough in scope to say something beyond its immediate area. It must be relevant to international scholarship. The ARC's mandate is to support innovative research which in method as well as in content will change the way scholars think in some area. You have to demonstrate that the topic fits into and will change scholarly dialogue.

One good way to get started is to peruse successful applications. A number are available for you to consult in the Arts Research Office. Make that your first port of call.

Discuss topic ideas with your supervisor, your shepherd, and any other academics in your department whose expertise is relevant. Developing the topic of your next research project will help your career in any case, since the most common question at job interviews is about your next project!

Developing a Topic – Discovery-Projects

An exciting project is the key to a successful application. You need to find a topic that excites you and that you can do or rather that you can demonstrate your ability to do successfully.

Your project must be broad enough in scope to say something beyond its immediate area. It must be relevant to international scholarship. The ARC's mandate is to support innovative research which in method as well as in content will change the way scholars think in some area. You have to demonstrate that the topic fits into and will change scholarly dialogue. Discuss topic ideas with your shepherd and any other colleagues whose expertise is relevant.

One good way to get started is to peruse successful applications. A number are available for you to consult in the Arts Research Office. Make that your first port of call.

The Application Process – APDs, Other Fellowships and Discovery-Projects

GAMS and Other Games

Go to Australian Research Council (ARC) - Discovery-Projects on the Melbourne Research Office webpage. Look at the pro forma application from last year. It asks you to come up with a 100-word summary, and personal info (section A), your track record (section B), a budget for your project (section C), some technical details usually inapplicable for APD applications (section D), and (most important), a 10-page essay developing your project (section E).

Sections A, C1 (the budget), and D must be entered in GAMS (Grant Application Management System—the ARC server). Sections B, C2 (the one-page budget justification) and E must be done as Word documents. The final application consists of the printed versions of both GAMS and Word documents interleaved and paginated. But don't worry about that now.

Do not worry about GAMS at all now. Don't even think about GAMS until November/December, which is when the ARC usually gets GAMS up and running. In the lead-up to lodgment, departments will run "GAMS Centres," from which trained staff (usually fellow post-grads) will help on how to get costings and enter the data. In some cases, your department may even offer to have them do this for you. But please, do not start worrying about GAMS now. Your application will be judged on its intellectual merits, not on your success in coping with computers.

So start with the core of the application, the 100-word summary, then develop the heart of the application, Part E, and then sketch out your budget as a Word document. Translating it into GAMS terms can wait till GAMS is up or indeed till the GAMS Centre in your department opens. (Discuss that with your shepherd.)

Preparing Your Application

If you inferred from the above that the budget was of secondary importance, you were right. That is not to say that it is unimportant, but rather that it must follow from the intellectual core of your application. That is what is important. That is what will decide your application's fate. What are you going to discover? Why is it important? How are you going to discover it? What will you need to discover it? These are the first questions to answer. The budget should follow logically once you have drafted a proposal, for the budget is no more than the practical steps you need to take in order to accomplish your intellectual task.

The first step is to develop your proposal. Begin with the 100-word summary in Part A and then work on Part E (the ten-page essay). As you develop Part E, make sure that it makes clear to someone outside your discipline what you want to discover, why it's important, and how your methodology will enable you to discover it.

Once you've got Part E drafted, turn to Part B. This is the section where you demonstrate that your track record shows you can and will complete the project. Track record is important. This is why you should be developing conference presentations and papers and submitting articles while you're working on your PhD. Whatever your publication record, but especially if you have no publications yet, consult your supervisor about preparing and submitting a journal article during the summer. If you get an acceptance by June or so, you can mention an accepted article in your rejoinder in July and you'll have another article on your cv for the next application round (if you're not successful).

Part B, the track record, is read in terms of factors such as time since award of PhD, innovation in research, and how it demonstrates your ability to accomplish your project. Some with no publications at all have nevertheless managed APDs. Others with excellent track records have not always succeeded. That is why your project proposal is so important. In drafting Part B, bear in mind the nature of your project and be sure to showcase all your achievements, especially those with any bearing on the project.In Part B you need to maximise your achievements, to sell yourself, to show that you are the person who can accomplish what you've set out in Part E.

When you have good drafts of Parts E and B, get onto the detailed application and the budget, but remember, the budget should only be a day's work compared to the month you should spend on Part E. At this point, you can go back and again peruse successful applications in the Arts Research office to see what have done on their budgets and copy or modify what they've done.

Assessors and the ARC

Let's consider whom you're writing for. Many applicants envisage the ARC as a black box, a mysterious "they," and then ask what "they" want. There is no "they." A number of individual academics are involved in deciding the fate of each application. All are individuals and all are academics, if highly successful and harassed ones.

The crucial readers are the two members of the ARC College of Experts assigned to your application. This "college" is the new name for the "Expert Advisory Committees." Until this year, applications were considered by Expert Advisory Committee consisting of ten members, including two industry members. This year, the same committees are now dubbed a college. They still function as "groupings" which are identical to the previous EAC designations—e.g. Humanities and Social Sciences—but these groupings are no longer posted on the ARC web site. Instead, you will find all the members of the "college" with pictures but no information apart from their institutional affiliation (http://www.arc.gov.au/arc_home/ and select "About ARC," and then on "ARC College of Experts"). A list of the Humanities College is appended.

When applications reach Canberra, they are divided among members of the relevant groupings of the College. Each application will go to a primary and a secondary reader from the College. The primary reader works in consultation with the secondary reader for that application, but the primary reader alone is ultimately responsible for the ranking. When the applications come in, s/he reads a large number, perhaps between 60 and 100, and makes a preliminary ranking.

At the same time, applications go out to assessors. Two assessors are Australian academics ("OZ Readers"). They are paid to read as many as 25 applications, though the number is usually between 10 and 15. OZ Readers must of necessity read a wide variety of applications. Applications are also sent to five "international" assessors ("INT Readers"). INT Readers are not necessarily located outside Australia; the term is meant to suggest some specialist expertise in the discipline, if not the area, of the application. INT Readers are asked to log in to GAMS and look at the applications. They may then choose not to assess. Thus applicants may receive as few as one or two assessors' reports (this happens very rarely) or as many as seven. Since the decision is made not by the assessors but by the College of Expertsreaders, the ARC does not consider the number of assessors' reports as relevant grounds for appeal.

The assessors' reports are available in July and applicants have a week to write rejoinders. (Workshops and further information on this part of the process will be provided.)

The ARC College of Experts readers then reconsider their initial rankings in the light of the assessors' comments and the rejoinders. Each first reader's final rankings are interleaved by computer to provide one overall list for the grouping. The College then meets in August to consider funding. Applications are considered from the highest ranked downward until funding runs out.

Applicants must therefore write for a broad audience. While the international assessor(s) are chosen for their specialist expertise, they may not have direct knowledge of the particular topic that is the basis of the application. The Australian assessors are intelligent, successful academics who almost certainly will not be experts in the area of the application. The ARC Experts are highly successful academics or business people. They are rarely expert in the area of the application. As senior academics, however, they have considerable experience with selection committees, promotion committees and the like: they are shrewd readers of track records and are usually able to distinguish original and substantial research projects from less competitive ones.

It is the College of Experts first reader who takes the initiative. S/he will, to be sure, take account of the assessors' reports. S/he will consult with the second reader (often by e-mail). But it is his/her reaction to your project that is by far the most important factor in the fate of your application. These academics struggle hard to do justice to massive stacks of competing applications. Clear prose, impeccable presentation and a sense of excitement about the project help enormously. Think of Part E (the ten-page exposition of the project) as an article for The New York Review of Books. It must be worthy of an expert but exciting to a layperson. Worthy of an expert means, however, that it must convince an expert of its methodology more than a New York Review of Books article might normally do.

Workshops and Other Support

Notes from Arts Research workshops are available at the Research Support for Academic Staff on the Arts website.

The Melbourne Research Office also holds “How to” Workshops and Information sessions throughout the year. More information on the MRO website.

Your Timetable

Your First Task:

Familiarise yourself with the relevant web sites:

June-July:

Make a start now. The guidelines are unlikely to change greatly for the next round and in any case if one waited till the ARC got them out one would not have time to prepare a good application.

If you have not already done, find the people who will mentor you and sit down and talk with them. Your supervisor would normally be closely involved. Discuss your topic ideas with her/him. The shepherd for your department (that to which you're applying) is your first support and always your ultimate recourse. Talk to her/him. Ask her/him whether s/he will mentor you or assign you to someone else. If it is someone else, sit down with that person as soon as possible. Ask yourself who else might be a resource if you became a Fellow of the Department and discuss your ideas with them.

With your mentors (especially your shepherd and supervisor), assess your publication record. Do you need more articles? Are there any chapters you might revise and send off as articles? If so, do so. Articles are essential to modern academic careers. Get started now. Even if your new articles are not accepted by the time you lodge your application, they should be accepted by the time you write the rejoinder. Every article helps, in job applications as well as in the next ARC application round if you're not successful this time. Go to the Arts Research Office (first floor, Old Arts) and peruse successful applications. The Melbourne Research Office also has a library of successful applications.

Draft the 100-word summary. An exciting proposal (or hypothesis) is the key to a good application.

Discuss your draft with your shepherd, your supervisor, and any key academic contacts that you may have already established in your relevant department or Centre. Ask your shepherd to help you find a mentor.

September:

Your draft 100 word summary and Section is due at Arts Research for appointment of a Mentor.

Part E: This is the heart of the application, so you need to have it done in time to discuss and revise it. Remember that it takes the same amount of mental energy as a major journal article, so get started.

Get a GAMS id at http://www.research.unimelb.edu.au/grants/apply/arc/gams/.

Develop your budget. What can you reasonably apply for to enable you to carry out the terrific research programme you've outlined in Part E? Let's consider this using the ARC's headings.

Personnel?

Research assistance is probably the only possibility in this category and in an APD application research assistance is unusual and should be used only with extreme caution. APD applicants would not have the same recourse to research assistance as would senior academics, but it is not necessarily to be excluded if you can make a case that there is repetitive work which could be done more effectively by a Research Assistant.

Equipment and maintenance?

(Maintenance means equipment and consumables costing less than $1000.) The ARC is accustomed to requests for equipment. While the ARC expects that the University will provide a desktop computer, it accepts requests for computing equipment that goes beyond the standard office desktop, including PowerBooks or laptops for research, especially if a database is to be created.

Are there microfilm collections or other major research tools not in the Library? These are perfectly justifiable as ARC requests if they are required for one's project. In the application, all that is required is justification that the item(s) is (are) essential to one's project and intellectual coherence with the project proposal.

Travel?

Outside Melbourne, are there any archives, persons to interview, important materials that cannot be transported? Are there any authorities with whom a meeting would be helpful? (That alone need justification, but certainly if there is an eminent authority on your subject near some important materials, you should mention both). If so, include travel and per diem costs at the places where these are located.

Other?

This includes all the little costs that don't obviously fall under the other headings. Ensure that your application is fully costed from the Department's point of view. Include all photocopying, postage, faxes, printing, telephone calls, etc., beyond that which would normally occur in the context of academic life.

IMPORTANT: You should have discussed with your shepherd if you'll be using your department's GAMS Centre to help you. If so, the GAMS Centre will get you quotes and costings, so don't waste time on this or on the technicalities of indirect costs, etc. Just get your basic budget outlined. If not, if you plan to enter your budget yourself, you'll have to get on top of these issues from the MRIO web site.

IMPORTANT AGAIN: Remember that the application is an intellectual document to be read by fellow intellectuals. They won't be looking at your budget as bureaucrats might, but rather as knowledgeable researchers, to see if the budget makes sense in terms of your research plan. The budget therefore should reinforce the impression that you know how to resolve the problem you've set yourself. It should be clear, not just in the budget justification but also throughout Part E, that each component of the budget is there for an intellectual reason and, conversely, that each reason, each research aim, has been considered practically and is reflected in the budget where it would be a cost.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, your mentor is going through your draft. S/he may not be a specialist in your area. That is fine. Ask him/her to ensure that your application excites a non-specialist, since that is what it must do to succeed. Work with your mentor to redraft according to his/her suggestions.

November:

Full Drafts of applications due at Faculty for final mentoring. Before November, make sure that you have set up good working relations with your summer mentor as well as with your departmental mentor or shepherd. Above all, make sure that it is clear how you will exchange drafts during December/January. If there are problems, please consult me.

December:

It is hard to get into a working frame of mind during this period, but it is essential to keep refining your drafts during the summer. Work with your department's GAMS Support Centre to ensure an appropriate budget and other GAMS pages are properly entered.

January:

Make adjustements and have applications ready for submission to the Melbourne Research Office (MRO) for checking prior to final submission to ARC in February 2007. Aim to complete by 1st February. The deadline for internal lodgment will probably be 8-10 February, but the week remaining will be taken up with Murphy's law, which is peculiarly applicable where computers are involved.

February:

Lodgment with the Grants Office is not the end of the processs. The Melbourne Research Office will get back to applicants with corrections and suggestions. Keep time available for dealing with these suggestions.

March-May:

This is a quiet period for the ARC applicant. Use it to start your project. If you get started early, you'll be ahead for the next round of applications or for the grant if you get it!

June-July:

Be sure you're in contact with your departmental shepherd and able to read the assessors reports and lodge your rejoinder on GAMS.

Spring:

The results are usually decided by September, but most years the Minister doesn't get around to signing till much later. So don't hold your breath. Get ready to reapply and then, should you be successful, you will have a pleasant surprise.

When the results do come, do talk to your shepherd. Don't be too disappointed. Only one of seven applicants succeeds. Many applicants strike it lucky on the second, third or even fourth try. Picking oneself up after being knocked back is part of the profession. Better to have applied and lost out than never to have applied at all.

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