Agency

The Australian Research Council (ARC) is a Commonwealth entity established as an independent body under the Australian Research Council Act 2001, reporting to the Minister for Education.

The ARC’s purpose is to help shape Australian research for the nation’s economic, social, environmental and cultural benefit by enabling excellent research; evaluating the excellence, impact and depth of Australian research; providing expert advice and research grants services; supporting research integrity and promoting ethical research.

The ARC supports the highest-quality early-stage research through the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP), which provides approximately $1 billion per year to Universities to support individual researchers, research teams and large-scale centres in all disciplines, except medical research.