Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A researcher nine years post-PhD applies for and is awarded an Emerging Leadership 2 (EL2) Investigator Grant, receiving a $200,000-per-annum Research Support Package plus salary support for a five-year term — funding is tied to their overall research program rather than to any single named study, so they can redirect the RSP toward whichever of several related research questions proves most promising as the grant progresses.
- Is an instance
A senior chief investigator with an established track record is awarded a Leadership Level 2 (L2) Investigator Grant, receiving a $400,000-per-annum RSP that covers salary contribution, staff, equipment, and travel across their research group's five-year direction, consolidating what would previously have been sought separately through a Research Fellowship plus one or more Project Grants.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A team of three chief investigators is awarded a three-year NHMRC Ideas Grant to test one specific, named research question (for example, whether a particular biomarker predicts treatment response in a defined patient cohort). This is not an Investigator Grant: the funding is scoped and budgeted to that single project rather than to any one CI's personal salary and multi-year program, several CIs can share it, and — unlike an Investigator Grant — a CI may hold up to two Ideas Grants at once (reduced to one if they also hold an Investigator Grant).
Editorial commentary
The NHMRC Investigator Grant is the National Health and Medical Research Council’s flagship personnel funding scheme in Australia. Introduced in 2019 as the centrepiece of NHMRC’s restructured grant program, it replaced the Council’s previous Fellowship schemes — Early Career Fellowships, Career Development Fellowships, and Research Fellowships — and consolidated them, along with the salary and research-cost funding those fellows previously had to seek separately through Project or Program Grants, into a single five-year award. The defining structural feature is what it funds: not a discrete, pre-specified project, but a Chief Investigator’s (CI’s) overall research program and direction over the grant’s term.
What an Investigator Grant actually funds
Every Investigator Grant has two components, paid together as one award:
- Salary support, where the CI needs it, contributing to their base salary for the term of the grant.
- A Research Support Package (RSP) — a flexible pool of funding the CI can direct toward staff, equipment, travel, consumables, and other research costs, without being tied to a single named project or a fixed, itemised project budget approved in advance.
Because the RSP isn’t earmarked to one deliverable, a CI can reallocate it across whichever parts of their research program are proving most productive as the five-year term unfolds — including forming new collaborations or shifting direction in response to findings — rather than being locked into the scope set out in a single grant application, the way a project-specific grant works.
Emerging Leadership and Leadership: the five funding levels
Applicants are assessed into one of two categories, each with its own levels and fixed RSP rate:
- Emerging Leadership (EL) — restricted to researchers within 10 years post-PhD (or equivalent research experience). Two levels: EL1 (RSP of $75,000 per annum) and EL2 (RSP of $200,000 per annum).
- Leadership (L) — for more senior investigators, with no post-PhD ceiling. Three levels: L1, L2, and L3, each carrying an RSP of $400,000 per annum; seniority and track record relative to opportunity determine which of the three levels an applicant is assessed against, not the RSP amount, which is uniform across L1-L3.
Roughly, the EL/L structure maps onto the fellowship tiers it replaced — Early Career Fellowships correspond to EL1, Career Development Fellowships to EL2, and Research Fellowships to the Leadership levels — though the Investigator Grant scheme is not a like-for-like renaming: it changed both the assessment framework (a single peer-review process weighing track record relative to opportunity and the quality of the proposed research program) and the funding mechanics (RSP replacing what fellows previously sought through separate Project or Program Grant applications). NHMRC periodically consults on and revises level-eligibility rules and assessment criteria — for example, whether the 10-year post-PhD threshold for EL applies uniformly — so the exact eligibility settings for a given funding round should always be checked against that round’s current NHMRC Investigator Grants guidelines rather than assumed to be static year to year.
A person’s program, not a project: how this differs structurally from a project grant
The core distinction to hold onto is what the grant is scoped to. A conventional project grant is scoped to a specific, named research question or set of aims, submitted with a budget justified against that project, and typically held by one or more CIs jointly on behalf of the project. An Investigator Grant is scoped to a single CI: it funds that person’s salary and a flexible RSP tied to their broader multi-year research direction, assessed substantially on the strength of the investigator’s track record and the quality of their proposed program of work, rather than on a fixed, itemised project budget.
This is the same structural distinction that separates, in the US NIH system, a Career Development (K) Award — which funds an individual’s protected research time and career trajectory — from an R01-style project grant funding a defined study. NHMRC’s own grant vocabulary, and the general concept of a multi-year project, are useful reference points when comparing the Investigator Grant’s person-centred structure against more conventional project-scoped funding.
Investigator Grants vs. Ideas Grants
NHMRC also runs a separate Ideas Grant scheme, and the two are easy to conflate because both fall under the same National Health and Medical Research Council Grant Program and both can include salary costs. They are structurally distinct, though:
- An Ideas Grant is scoped to a specific research idea or question, runs for a duration of one to five years depending on the proposal, is budgeted and justified against that specific project (in line with NHMRC’s Direct Research Cost guidelines), and can be held by multiple CIs on the same application.
- An Investigator Grant is scoped to one CI’s program, always runs for a fixed five-year term, and is funded through the salary-plus-RSP structure described above rather than an itemised project budget.
The two schemes also interact through NHMRC’s holding rules rather than being fully independent: a CI may hold up to two Ideas Grants concurrently, but only one if they also hold an Investigator Grant; an Investigator Grant holder generally cannot apply for a new Ideas Grant unless they are in the final year of their Investigator Grant; and if a CI already holding an Ideas Grant is subsequently awarded an Investigator Grant, the Investigator Grant’s RSP is reduced by 50% for the period the two awards overlap. A research administrator tracking a CI’s NHMRC portfolio needs to model both schemes together for exactly this reason — they are not simply additive.
Application limits and administration
A CI may submit only one Investigator Grant application per NHMRC funding round, and may hold at most one Investigator Grant at a time. Applications are submitted and administered through NHMRC’s Sapphire grants management platform. Because the RSP funds a program rather than a fixed project budget, institutions typically still need to track and disclose an investigator’s Investigator Grant alongside other active and pending support — the same underlying disclosure obligation covered generally under current and pending support — even though the grant itself isn’t itemised the way a conventional project budget is.
Related CASRAI terms
- Australian Research Council (ARC) — the Australian Government’s other major national funder, covering research fields outside clinical medicine and dentistry, which NHMRC funds instead.
- Career Development (K) Awards — the closest NIH structural analog: individual-researcher salary and career-development funding rather than a discrete project grant.
- Multi-year project
- Current and pending support
- Grant (object template)
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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