Announcement of Future Fellowships and Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA). (November 15, 2011)

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, yesterday announced the awarding of $248 million in funding for 480 ARC Future Fellowships and Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA).

Senator Carr said that over $144 million is being awarded to 203 mid-career researchers under the Future Fellowships scheme while almost $104 million is being allocated to 277 early-career researchers under the DECRA scheme, which specifically provides opportunities for promising early-career researchers.

Earlier this month the ARC's chief executive, Professor Margaret Sheil, noted that Discovery Project grants totalled $236.8 million compared with last year's $318.2m, but explained that the loss was due to funding being reallocated to more than 200 grants to early career researchers: "We expect it to give a broader range of opportunities to researchers earlier in their careers," Professor Sheil said.

The Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards are described as "a separate element of the Discovery Program [which] aims to provide more focused support for researchers and create more opportunities for early-career researchers in both teaching and research, and research-only positions. It supports research in areas of critical national importance by enabling outstanding Australian and international early-career researchers to conduct their research in Australia".

It remains to be seen whether or not this approach will have a deleterious effect on Australian fundamental research.

Details are available here with one example -- the "Time since PhD" tabulation below.

According to Senator Carr, the Future Fellowships scheme (begun in 2008) is designed to promote research in areas of critical national importance by giving outstanding researchers incentives to conduct their research in Australia and to attract and retain the best and brightest mid-career researchers. "Future Fellowships offer four-year fellowships of up to $143,000 a year to... Australian and international researchers in the middle of their career. In addition, the ARC will provide Administering Organisations with funding of up to $50,000 per annum which may be used for infrastructure, equipment, travel and relocation costs directly related to the Future Fellow’s research."

Full details of the outcomes of this year's awards are available here.

The number of awards per institution are shown below.