Australian Research Funding: How the ARC, NHMRC, and MRFF Fit Together

Australia does not have a single national research funding agency. Instead, three federal bodies split the work by remit: the Australian Research Council (ARC) funds research across essentially all disciplines except clinical medicine, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funds health and medical research, and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) is a separately legislated, endowment-style fund that also finances medical research, often through NHMRC-run competitions. On top of these three, universities receive their own government block funding, and individual states and territories run additional programs. For a researcher or research administrator new to the system, the practical question is usually “which of these bodies actually funds my project, and how do the pieces relate?” This guide answers that by walking through each body’s remit, how they intersect, and where university- and state-level funding fits around them.

The three national funding bodies, at a glance

• ARC — an independent statutory authority (Australian Research Council Act 2001) that funds research across all disciplines other than clinical medicine, through its National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP).
• NHMRC — a statutory agency in the Health and Aged Care portfolio (National Health and Medical Research Council Act 1992) that funds health and medical research and also sets Australia’s national research-ethics guidance.
• MRFF — a dedicated medical research investment fund created under the Medical Research Future Fund Act 2015, administered by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, with individual grant opportunities frequently run by NHMRC on the Department’s behalf.

All three jointly sit alongside — not instead of — university-level Research Block Grants and state/territory government funding programs, covered further down.

Australian Research Council (ARC): the general research funder

The ARC traces its institutional lineage to the Australian Research Grants Committee (1965) and became an independent statutory authority under the Australian Research Council Act 2001. Its remit is deliberately broad: humanities, social sciences, physical and biological sciences, engineering, and technology — everything, in effect, except clinical medicine and closely related health/medical research, which sits with NHMRC instead. The ARC itself defines “medical research” broadly (laboratory, clinical, group- or community-based study of the causes, treatment, and prevention of disease, including dental research) when explaining what falls outside its own remit.

The ARC delivers its funding through the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP), split into two streams:

• Discovery Program — investigator-driven research and researcher career development: Discovery Projects, the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), Discovery Indigenous, ARC Future Fellowships, and the Australian Laureate Fellowships.
• Linkage Program — collaborative research with industry, government, or community partners: Linkage Projects (which require a matched cash-and-in-kind contribution from a Partner Organisation), ARC Centres of Excellence, the Industrial Transformation Research Program, and Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF).

ARC applications run through the ARC’s own Research Management System (RMS). For the full scheme list and the ARC’s annual application calendar, see ARC Grants: Australia’s Research Council Schemes and Application Calendar. The ARC also jointly issues Australia’s research-integrity framework, the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018), with NHMRC and Universities Australia, and jointly runs the Australian Research Integrity Committee (ARIC) with NHMRC.

Structural note: the ARC’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) evaluation exercise — a periodic, discipline-level assessment of research quality at Australian universities — was discontinued in 2023 following the ARC Act Review and the Australian Universities Accord process; as of this writing a proposed replacement national research evaluation framework has been reported but not finalized.

National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC): the health and medical research funder

NHMRC operates under the National Health and Medical Research Council Act 1992 (effective 24 June 1993), tracing its own institutional lineage back to the Federal Health Council of 1926 and becoming NHMRC in 1937; it became a fully independent statutory agency in 2006. Its core funding schemes include the Investigator Grant (funding a researcher’s salary and a body of research broadly, rather than a single defined project) and the Ideas Grant (funding a specific, defined research project, open to any career stage). Both run through NHMRC’s own web-based grants platform, Sapphire, which replaced the older RGMS system.

NHMRC also carries a second function distinct from grant funding: through its Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC), it develops the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research — Australia’s counterpart to the US Common Rule (45 CFR 46) — and around 200 Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) nationally are registered with NHMRC against that Statement. A revised 2025 edition of the National Statement is reported to take effect 23 June 2026.

Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF): the endowment alongside NHMRC

The MRFF is easy to mistake for an NHMRC program, but it is legislatively distinct: it was created under the Medical Research Future Fund Act 2015 as a dedicated capital fund, and it is administered by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing rather than by NHMRC itself. In practice, though, the two are closely linked in delivery: NHMRC frequently runs specific MRFF grant opportunities on the Department’s behalf, using NHMRC’s own Sapphire systems, and MRFF grant agreements generally require compliance with NHMRC’s National Statement on ethical conduct. For a research office, the practical distinction that matters is administrative and legislative (which Act and which portfolio a grant sits under, and therefore which reporting and compliance terms apply) rather than a difference in day-to-day application mechanics, which often look similar to an NHMRC scheme.

How the three bodies intersect

The cleanest way to place a project is by discipline first, then by mechanism:

• Non-health/medical research (humanities through engineering) — ARC, via Discovery or Linkage.
• Health and medical research, investigator-salary-style support — NHMRC Investigator Grant.
• Health and medical research, project-defined — NHMRC Ideas Grant, or an MRFF-funded, NHMRC-run initiative depending on the specific funding call.
• Cross-disciplinary research with an industry, government, or community partner — ARC Linkage (if outside clinical medicine) or an equivalent NHMRC/MRFF partnership mechanism (if within it).

The two areas administrators most often need to double-check are (1) borderline health-adjacent proposals, where the ARC’s own published guidance on what counts as “medical research” is the relevant test for ARC eligibility, and (2) MRFF versus NHMRC-core-funded schemes, where the operative question is which Act and portfolio the specific funding opportunity sits under, since that determines the applicable grant agreement terms. All three bodies also jointly rely on shared national infrastructure rather than duplicating it themselves — for example, the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), funded through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) rather than through ARC, NHMRC, or MRFF directly, provides data infrastructure used by researchers across all three funders’ grant portfolios.

University-level funding: Research Block Grants

Separately from competitive ARC/NHMRC/MRFF grants, the Australian Government also provides direct, formula-based block funding to universities through the Research Block Grants (RBG) scheme, administered by the Department of Education. RBG comprises two programs:

• Research Support Program (RSP) — funds the systemic costs of running a research enterprise: libraries, laboratories, computing infrastructure, and the salaries of research-support and technical staff, plus research costs not otherwise covered by competitive grants.
• Research Training Program (RTP) — funds the training of domestic and international students undertaking research doctorates and research masters (higher degree by research, HDR), including RTP Fees Offset, RTP Stipend, and RTP Allowances components.

Both programs are allocated to eligible higher education providers using formulas that weight each institution’s research performance and HDR-training outcomes, not through project-by-project competitive review the way ARC or NHMRC grants are. This is the mechanism that pays for the institutional infrastructure a competitive grant is layered on top of, and it is why a university’s competitive-grant success feeds back into its future RBG allocation.

State and territory funding

Each Australian state and territory government also runs its own research and innovation funding programs — typically targeted co-investment, infrastructure, or sector-specific grants rather than a general equivalent to the ARC or NHMRC. These sit alongside federal funding rather than replacing it, and eligibility, scale, and focus vary considerably by jurisdiction and by year. A research office working across multiple states should treat state-level programs as a supplementary, jurisdiction-specific layer to check separately, rather than assume a single national pattern applies.

Practical checklist for research administrators

1. Identify the discipline first: is this clinical medicine/health research (NHMRC/MRFF territory) or not (ARC territory)? Use the ARC’s own published definition of “medical research” for borderline cases.
2. If it’s ARC, decide Discovery (investigator-driven, no partner required) versus Linkage (requires a Partner Organisation with a matched cash-and-in-kind contribution).
3. If it’s NHMRC/MRFF, check the specific funding opportunity’s home Act and portfolio (NHMRC-core vs. MRFF) to determine which grant-agreement terms apply, even though the application process may look similar.
4. Remember that Research Block Grant funding (RSP/RTP) and any relevant state program are separate, non-competitive-for-the-individual-researcher funding streams that support the institutional environment around a competitive grant — they don’t substitute for one, but they explain why institutional research infrastructure and HDR scholarships exist independently of any single grant.
5. Confirm which submission system applies — ARC’s RMS or NHMRC’s Sapphire — since the two are separate platforms with separate accounts and deadlines.

Frequently asked questions

Does Australia have a single funding agency the way Canada has its Tri-Agency system?

Not exactly. Australia’s structure is closer to a two-way discipline split (ARC for non-medical research, NHMRC for health/medical research) plus a separate medical-research investment fund (MRFF) than to a single umbrella framework. There is no single Australian document that plays the role of a unified cross-agency financial administration guide the way Canada’s Tri-Agency Guide on Financial Administration does for CIHR/NSERC/SSHRC — ARC and NHMRC each maintain their own guidelines, though the two agencies do jointly issue the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and jointly run the Australian Research Integrity Committee.

What is the difference between an NHMRC Ideas Grant and an NHMRC Investigator Grant?

An Ideas Grant funds a specific, defined research project and is open to researchers at any career stage. An Investigator Grant instead funds the salary and a broader body of research led by a single named investigator, with separate schemes for emerging and established researchers. See NHMRC Ideas Grant and NHMRC Investigator Grant for the full scheme comparison.

Is the Medical Research Future Fund part of NHMRC?

No. The MRFF is a legislatively separate fund created under the Medical Research Future Fund Act 2015 and administered by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. NHMRC frequently runs specific MRFF grant opportunities on the Department’s behalf using NHMRC’s own systems, which is why the two are often discussed together, but they are distinct legal and administrative entities.

Do Australian universities receive research funding directly from the government, separate from ARC and NHMRC grants?

Yes — through the Research Block Grants scheme (Research Support Program and Research Training Program), administered by the Department of Education and allocated by formula rather than competitive project review. This funds institutional research infrastructure and HDR student training rather than individual project grants.

Sourcing note: primary-source pages on arc.gov.au repeatedly failed to load directly during research for this guide (a known, recurring issue); facts describing ARC’s structure and schemes above are corroborated across multiple independent sources (Wikipedia’s sourced ARC entry, university research-office pages, and WebSearch snippets of arc.gov.au’s own published text) rather than a single direct fetch, and should be treated as REPORTED-tier pending direct re-verification against arc.gov.au for anything precise enough to be load-bearing (exact current scheme names, budget figures, or deadlines). NHMRC, MRFF, and Department of Education facts above were corroborated similarly, with some sourced via direct WebFetch of nhmrc.gov.au and education.gov.au material.