ARC grant round pledges $70m to life sciences

The latest round of Australian Research Council linkage and discovery grants, announced today, have allocated AUD$381 million over five years to more than 1300 new research projects from 2005.

An total of $59.4 million was awarded to winners of biological sciences and biotechnology discovery projects, and $11.1 million to 39 biological sciences and biotechnology linkage projects.

The ARC Linkage Project grants encourage collaborations between university researchers and industry. In this round, the ARC provided $55.5 million to 463 new collaborative research projects. The University of Queensland was the overall frontrunner with 39 projects worth $7.1 million, followed by The University of New South Wales with 35 projects worth $4.9 million and The University of Melbourne with 34 project worth $4.2 million.

The largest slice of funding for the discovery grants, which support more fundamental research, went to research in physics, chemistry and geosciences, followed by biological sciences and biotechnology. Of the 1051 grants, almost 600 will include international collaborations. The greatest number of collaborations will be with US-based researchers.

The University of Melbourne and the University of New South Wales led the field in the Discovery Grants, winning 350 grants worth $37.95 million and 317 grants worth $34.25 million respectively. They were followed by the University of Sydney with 305 grants worth $34.3 million and the University of Queensland with 280 grants worth $25.4 million.

The ARC grants are part of the federal government's Backing Australia's Ability program.