In 2010, $1.42 billion is being provided to eligible Australian Higher Education Providers (HEPs) as block grants for research and research training, through a number of performance-based schemes. Research Block Grants are allocated according to performance based formula and are independent of funding for specific research projects, programs, or fellowships. HEPs have considerable autonomy in deciding what research projects, personnel, equipment and infrastructure this funding should support.
The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR) manages seven programs to support research and research training in Australian HEPs:
Important Note: Payments are made to HEPs who administer the schemes on behalf of the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. Individual students or researchers need to approach their HEP to obtain funding support.
How Research Block Grants are authorised
The programs are established by the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA) and can only fund eligible HEPs listed in Table A or Table B of HESA, Division 16. HEPs receive a single annual funding amount (block) for each scheme and are responsible for administering the programs on behalf of DIISR within broad guidelines. The guidelines and conditions of grant can be found on the program web pages listed above.
How Research Block Grants are calculated
Funding for each program is calculated by a formula using some combination of the following inputs:
- Research student total load
- Research student total completions
- Research income
- Research publications
- Previous program payments
Important Note: The formulae calculate each HEP’s percentage share of the total available funds - they do not assign dollar values to the inputs and aggregate them to determine funding.
Detailed information on all the program formulae can be found on the Research Block Grants Calculation Methodology page.
All data inputs are sourced from the Higher Education Research Data Collection or the Higher Education Student Data Collection. Further information on these collections, current and historical data used in calculations and other data can be found at the Research Block Grants Data page.