ARC LIEF (Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities)

The Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) scheme is the Australian Research Council’s dedicated funding mechanism for shared research infrastructure, sitting inside the ARC’s Linkage Program alongside Linkage Projects and ARC Centres of Excellence. Where those schemes fund research activity or a coordinated program, LIEF funds the underlying tools: the acquisition, construction, and installation of equipment and facilities that a single institution’s budget usually cannot justify alone, structured so that the resulting asset is shared across a consortium rather than held by one organisation.

What LIEF Funds

Eligible LIEF budget items include the purchase of research equipment and instruments, construction or upgrading of research facilities, specialised computing infrastructure and software, salaries for the technical and support staff needed to construct, install, and commission the new infrastructure, the compilation of significant research databases and collections, and funding to support access to major national or international facilities. The organising principle is cooperative, shared use: a LIEF-funded resource is meant to serve a consortium of researchers and institutions, not sit as a single lab’s dedicated instrument.

Funding and Co-Contribution

The ARC’s own contribution to a LIEF grant has a minimum level of $150,000 per year, and the scheme funds a maximum of 75% of the total direct cost of the eligible budget items. The remaining share is a required co-contribution: organisational cash contributions toward the direct costs must make up at least 25% of the total, sourced from the administering organisation, other participating eligible organisations, and any partner organisations from industry or other sectors. Participating organisations are also expected to contribute significant in-kind support — staff time, existing equipment access, or facilities — on top of the cash requirement. This co-investment structure is what distinguishes LIEF from a straightforward research grant: it is designed to demonstrate that the institutions requesting the infrastructure are genuinely committed to funding and using it, not simply asking the ARC to underwrite a purchase.

Who Can Apply

LIEF applications are submitted by an eligible Australian higher education institution acting as the Administering Organisation, on behalf of a team of Chief Investigators who will be the infrastructure’s primary users and managers. Applications typically name multiple university partners plus, where relevant, partner organisations from industry, government, or the not-for-profit sector who will also draw on the shared resource. As with every ARC scheme, applications are lodged through the ARC’s Research Management System (RMS) under the same National Competitive Grants Program mechanics as the rest of the Linkage Program.

How LIEF Differs from Other ARC Schemes

LIEF is easy to confuse with the research-activity schemes it sits alongside, but the distinction is what is being funded. A Discovery Project funds investigator-driven research with no mandatory external co-contribution; a Linkage Project funds a partnered research project requiring an external Partner Organisation’s cash and in-kind support; an ARC Centre of Excellence funds an entire multi-year, multi-institution program of coordinated research activity. LIEF funds none of these directly — it funds the shared equipment or facility that any of those activities might then be carried out on. A research group that needs funding to run a study should look to Discovery Projects or Linkage Projects; a research group that needs access to an instrument or facility too expensive for one institution to buy outright is the LIEF use case.