Background and Purpose

Since its inception, increasing pressure of competition for project grants awarded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) has led to a reduction in the success rate of applications—to a level below the 30–35 per cent generally considered to be the minimum desirable for schemes of this type. One consequence of declining opportunity is the discouraging effect it has on early career researchers in particular, so that fewer applications for funding are received from them and failure to obtain funding is more likely to seriously affect their development as researchers. Concern has therefore been expressed that researchers of promise are being lost, and that disciplines will consequently suffer in terms of their future development.

The study reported here set out to examine the needs and experiences of those within an academic setting who show promise as researchers. It was designed to derive a definition of an early career researcher, to identify the means by which early career researchers obtain funding for their research, to consider the impact on early career researchers of not receiving funding, and to determine whether some identifiable groups face particular obstacles in obtaining funding for their research.