ARC Centres of Excellence Scheme – How to Submit an Outstanding Application
Emeritus Professor Geoff Fincher | July 2022
Photo by Glen Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
The ARC Centres of Excellence scheme aims to enhance and develop Australia’s research excellence through highly innovative and collaborative research, as well as build Australia’s human capacity in a range of research areas. Putting together an application to this scheme requires time, patience and an excellent program that maps to Australia’s research priorities. Emeritus Professor Geoff Fincher provides some tips on putting together an outstanding application that will capture assessors’ attention and, hopefully, lead to funding of the Centre.
Provide specific and detailed examples of how your emerging technologies will be used, what result might be expected from this experimental approach, and how the specific example will be applied and contribute to Australia’s research priorities. Several specific examples can be sprinkled through the application, or one key example can be followed throughout the application. Try to avoid writing in broad, general terms and aim to excite ARC panel assessors with real examples that will arise from the research program.
Use the Objective boxes, which have a quite generous word limit, in Part A to immediately capture the attention of panel members through short examples of how innovative experimental methods will be used, how results will contribute to knowledge in the field and how that knowledge will be applied.
Try not to nominate too many Chief Investigators as this raises the possibility that managing the CoE will be cumbersome, that meeting individual CI expectations for funding could be difficult and that the CoE might collapse under its own weight. Include CIs with excellent track records and clearly state where they will contribute and what proportion of their time they will devote to the CoE.
Try not to present the project description section as a closely-spaced, turgid text that is difficult to read. Dot points can be effective in overcoming this problem and heavily referenced background text should be minimised.
Don’t miss opportunities for leveraging funds from other sources, particularly international collaborators. If an overseas colleague is providing a key technology or knowledge base for a project within the CoE, then that colleague might be persuaded to apply for matching funds from the appropriate funding body of their own country (e.g. BBSRC). In this way, the funding of CoE projects can be doubled (potentially), funds from both countries stay within that country and the ARC will like the true collaborative nature of the international projects.
Present governance structures in which the Centre Director and executive management committee receive advice from various sub-committees or boards, and ensure there is an over-arching board (which could include DVCRs from key institutions) to monitor poor performance of the director or the management committee, and act upon it if necessary. Also under governance structures, the inclusion of a sub-committee representing postdoctoral scientists, higher degree students and technical staff will be seen as a positive by the ARC and will provide invaluable information and feedback for the executive management committee.
Geoff Fincher is Emeritus Professor in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine a the University of Adelaide. He was the founding Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls.
