Special Research Initiatives

The Special Research Initiatives (SRI) scheme provides funding for new and emerging fields of research and builds capacity in strategically important areas. The ARC currently funds several SRIs in a wide range of research areas.

The objective of the SRI scheme is to support high-quality research which will assist in advancing Australia’s research excellence to be globally competitive and deliver benefits to the community. This extends, but is not limited, to supporting research-related activities which will respond to emerging opportunities or changing priorities.

The SRI scheme provides funding to support: cooperative activities amongst researchers; cooperative development of national and international linkages; cooperative development of innovative research areas; activities aimed at building the scale and focus of research and research training; and other activities that the ARC judges to be consistent with the scheme’s objectives.

Funding may also be used to develop networks and initiate collaborations that would be unlikely to occur otherwise and, where appropriate, disseminate the outcomes of the collaborative activities funded under the scheme.

Funding under the SRI scheme is available to support activities related to high‑quality research in all or any fields of research supported by the ARC.

Applications for SRI funding may be submitted only when invited by the ARC by means of a call for proposal(s) for funding.

Current initiatives

SchemeARC OpenEligibility & Compliance (E&C) Check PeriodRequest Not to Assess due to Research OfficeUniversity of Newcastle Deadline for Final ApplicationARC Submission
No SRIs currently open     

Applicants are strongly encouraged to commence their application ASAP after the scheme opens in RMS so that they can book their preferred day for application review.

Previous initiatives

Documents

Certification Proforma and Other Useful Information

University of Newcastle ARC Written Evidence Certification proformas, Guide to writing the National Interest Test (NIT) Statement, Guide to auto-populate Research Outputs and ORCHID, Preparing budgets and other useful information is available in the ‘Preparing ARC Grants’ accordion on the Linkage Program page.

ARC Supporting Documents

The ARC is now required to publish Grant Guidelines and associated documents on GrantConnect, the Australian Government whole-of-government, centralised, web-based, grant information system. You will need to sign in or create a User Registration account in GrantConnect to access all relevant documentation for ARC Discovery Projects including the Discovery Program Grant Guidelines, Instructions to Applicants and Sample Application Form.

If you encounter any problems using Grant Connect or accessing any of the relevant documentation, please contact research-applications@newcastle.edu.au or phone on (02) 492 17733.

University of Newcastle Documents

Please see the 'Preparing ARC Grants' section for more information relating to ARC grant applications.