ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA)

Key dates for ARC DECRA 2026

Release of Grant Guidelines: 8 August 2024
Round opening: 30 January 2025
UQ Information session: 4 February 2025
Internal Notice of Intent due: 11 February 2025
Eligibility Exemption Requests due to the Research Office: 18 February 2025
Applications due to the Research Office: 18 February 2025
Request Not to Assess due to the Research Office: 3 March 2025
Applications due to ARC: ~~18 March 2025~~ 25 March 2025
Anticipated Rejoinder Period: 25 June 2025 to 8 July 2025
Anticipated announcement: 14 November 2025 to 27 November 2025

Please note that UQ has been granted an extension due to the impact of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. Applications are now due to the ARC on the 25 March 2025. We ask that applicants continue to endevour to submit your applications to the Research Office as soon as possible.

UQ Information Session

To assist applicants in preparing their applications, the Research Office will be hosting an Information Session. A recording of this session will be made available on the UQ R&I presentations and slides webpage for those who are unable to attend. The session will feature a scheme overview, key findings from past rounds, the application and submission process, and a Q&A session with ARC College of Expert members.

Date: 10:30am Tuesday 4 February 2025
Venue: 50-N201 - Hawken Engineering Building, Learning Theatre

Overview

The ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) grant opportunity provides focused research support for early career researchers in both teaching and research, and research-only positions. Normally up to 200 three-year DECRAs, including up to $50,000 per annum in project funds, are awarded each year.

Eligibility

To be eligible, the candidate must, at the grant opportunity closing date,

have an award of PhD date on, or after 1 March 2020, or
have an award of PhD date together with an allowable period of career interruptions that would be commensurate with an award of PhD date on, or after 1 March 2020.
The allowable career interruptions set out and the period allowed for each are described in the Discovery Fellowship Grant Guidelines (2023 edition).

Eligibility exemption request

If you received your PhD prior to 1 March 2020, and have allowable career interruptions, you will need to request an Eligibility Exemption through UQ's Research Office by following the below steps:

Familiarise yourself with the ARC’s Eligibility and Career Interruptions Statement
Use the UQ DE26 Eligibility Exemption Calculator to calculate your eligible career interruptions.
Complete and certify the UQ DE26 Eligibility Exemption Request Form.
Submit your UQ DE26 Eligibility Exemption Request Form, and evidence for each interruption via email to ARC-Discovery@research.uq.edu.au to request endorsement of your request.
The Research Office will advise you of the outcome of your request.

If you are applying from outside UQ (external), you must have confirmed school or centre support before your eligibility exemption request can be processed by the Research Office.

How to apply

Step 1. UQ Notice of Intent (NOI)

All researchers intending to submit an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2026 application are required to submit a mandatory internal UQ Notice of Intent (NOI). NOIs will be collated centrally and distributed to Faculties and Institutes to maximise support to the UQ research community. If you would like to discuss your intention to apply with your local area, please contact your Faculty/Institute Research Manager.

Submit UQ Notice of Intent

External Applicants

If you are not currently part of UQ and wish to apply for a 2026 DECRA through UQ, you must first seek support from a UQ school or centre where you wish to complete your DECRA project. You should have a UQ researcher who is willing to be your DECRA mentor/supervisor before completing an NOI.

Step 2. RMS updates and scheme reading

Update your full profile in the RMS ‘Person Profile’. If any team members are new to RMS and need a login/password. We strongly recommend starting this process early.
Familiarise yourself with key Australian Research Council (ARC) and UQ documentation. It is especially important to familiarise yourself with ARC's Grant Guidelines and Instructions to Applicants documents.

Step 3. Completing the application

Log into RMS, create an application and make sure UQ is listed as the Administering Organisation.
Use the UQ templates available below to draft your documents to be uploaded to your application in RMS.
Complete the application in RMS.
When ready for review, ensure all online components are complete and valid, generate a whole application PDF for your records and select 'Submit to Research Office' in RMS

Step 4. Research Office internal review and feedback

To initiate internal review, email your completed Application Certification Form and UQ Pending and Newly Funded ARC grants form to the Research Office at arc-discovery@research.uq.edu.au. Please note that RMS does not alert the Research Office when you create or submit an application in RMS.
If you are lodging a Request not to Assess (RNTA), please note that applicants should complete the ‘Request Not to Assess’ form in RMS (instructions are available below) and then submit to the Research Office for review by the date stated in key dates above. Instructions for creating a RNTA will be made available on GrantConnect.
The Research Office will review your application and provide feedback.

Step 5. Final submission

When your application is complete and fully compliant, the UQ Research Office will submit the application to the ARC through RMS

Readership and researcher support

Before applying, we recommend you:

Contact your faculty or institute research manager for advice on peer readership programs.
Join the UQ R&I Mailer to stay up to date with round developments.
Access the UQ R&I Grants Library, a helpful resource of past successful proposals.
If offered, attend UQ R&I information sessions and access PowerPoint presentations from presentations and slides.

Key documents

ARC

Before applying, please review the full suite of documents, which will become available via GrantConnect (login required), the Australian Government grants information system.

UQ

Mandatory Forms

Templates

Application Resources

Additional Forms

UQ DE26 Eligibility Exemption Request Form (DOCX, 53 KB) (Updated 5 December 2024)
DE26 Eligibility Exemption Request calculator (XLSX, 24.5 KB)

UQ Library Support

Visit Publication metrics for the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project, Future Fellowship and DECRA grants for a guide on completing the Research Opportunity and Performance Evidence (ROPE) sections of the EOI application.
View the recorded Publication metrics for your ARC grants – Future Fellowship, DECRA and Discovery Project – (UQ login required) on Zoom (held 1st October 2024). This session will help you find and analyse your publications in the Scopus and SciVal citation databases.
View the recorded Research Engagement and Impact evidence for your ARC Future Fellowship, DECRA and Discovery Project – (UQ login required) on Zoom (held 3rd October 2024). This session will help you to identify and track engagement and impact evidence using tools outside the citation databases such as Altmetric Explorer, PatCite (The Lens) and WorldCat.

Rejoinder and rebuttal

In the ARC assessment and rejoinder process, comments from external assessors may be made available to applicants, and applicants given the opportunity to submit a rejoinder.

Detailed information on the rejoinder process (including instructions for accessing assessment reports and submitting rejoinders) is available from the ARC website. The Research Office information session and internal deadlines for assessment review requests and rejoinders are shown under our Key Dates section above. The Research Office has developed a Rejoinder Tip Sheet with FAQs to assist you in crafting your rejoinder.

Rejoinder Information Session

To assist researchers to prepare rejoinders, the Research Office holds rejoinder information sessions involving senior academics who have served on the ARC's College of Experts and posts the session materials when they become available.

Details: To be announced