Research News & Funding Opportunities

Congratulations for the ARC Discovery Project Outcomes
Paul Ramsay Foundation Fellowships – coordinated by Advancement, EOIs due 5 November
Insignia Community Foundation: Community grants – coordinated by Advancement, EOIs due 10 November
Spencer: Research-Practice Partnerships: Collaborative Research for Educational Change – closes 14 November
Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) – Request for Proposals – closes 6 January 2026
Digital Skills Workshops for HASS Researchers
RDU Supervisor Development Series: Chairing productive and supportive advisory committees – Thursday, 27 November

1. Congratulations for the ARC Discovery Project Outcomes

Congratulations to Professor Marica McKenzie and A/P Sarah Truman for their project “Slow emergencies, policy change, and hopeful futures for young people”

Congratulations to A/P Gavin Slemp for his project “Improving the wellbeing and retention of early-career teachers in Australia”

2. Paul Ramsay Foundation Fellowships – coordinated by Advancement, EOIs due 5 November

The Paul Ramsay Foundation have opened their 2026 PRF Fellowships, with applications due by 19 November 2025. Advancement is coordinating a call for internal EOIs to support eligible applications.

PRF Fellowships support innovative or transformative research and practice ideas that could contribute significantly towards shifting conditions for people, places and communities to thrive and stopping disadvantage in Australia. They are particularly interested in topics that align with PRF’s purpose and one or more of their three strategic outcomes:

Places and communities are connected, and imagining and leading their own futures.
Children and young people have positive life paths free from entrenched poverty and harm.
First Nations peoples and communities are self-determining.

PRF invite you to be expansive in your thinking about not just ‘what’ needs to change to enable these outcomes but also ‘how’ it could be achieved. For example:

How can we draw from multiple knowledge systems – Indigenous knowledges, lived experience, and scientific understanding – to move us towards more equitable societies?
What practices are needed for realising just futures?
What leadership, connections and actions are needed for enduring systems change?
How can we diversify and direct capital for impact?
How can we shift hearts and minds, and policy and practice in a particular area?

What possibilities on the next horizon are we not yet thinking about that we should be?

If your research aligns and you are interested submitting an application, please email a brief description (couple of paragraphs) of your proposed work to advancement-philanthropicgrants@unimelb.edu.au by COB Wednesday, 5 November 2025. We will then advise next steps.

Please note, PRF will NOT fund medical research or research that is primarily academic in nature.

Guidelines are attached and more details can be accessed here.

3. Insignia Community Foundation: Community grants – coordinated by Advancement, EOIs due 10 November

Insignia Community Foundation are now considering applications for their Community Grants program with applications due 31 November. The University is eligible to submit one application, so Advancement is coordinating an internal selection process.

If you are interested in putting forward a project for consideration, please populate this form by COB Monday 10 November.

The Foundation supports the community across five impact areas:

Financial wellbeing: Improving skills, confidence and know-how of people so they can achieve greater financial wellbeing now and into the future. Programs being supported may include those that help people understand their finances better, training that leads to employment or initiatives that keep students in school.
Basic needs: We support initiatives that provide vital and basic items to people so they can go about their daily life, such as items to make people feel more included, healthier, happier, or enable people to be more financially secure.
Reconciliation: Aligning with Insignia Financial’s Reconciliation Action Plan, we aim to further the endeavours of First Nations people through employment, business ownership, education and financial training.
Diversity and inclusion: We support inclusion, diversity and wellbeing in the community through programs that enable social participation for all.
Mental health: We aim to address mental health challenges for people of all ages with access to quality care, support and resources.

Further information is available here.

4. Spencer: Research-Practice Partnerships: Collaborative Research for Educational Change – closes 14 November

Contact foe-research@unimelb.edu.au if you are interested in applying

This grant program is open to existing partnerships between researchers and a broad array of practitioners. For example, practitioners might work in school districts, county offices of education, state educational organizations, universities, community-based organizations, and other social sectors that significantly impact learners’ lives.

Proposals to the Research-Practice Partnership program must be for research and other activities aimed to support collaborative partnerships between academic researcher(s) and a broad array of practitioner(s) of education.

The proposed duration of the grant may not be longer than 3 years.

Click here to view full funding guidelines on the provider’s website.

5. Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) – Request for Proposals – closes 6 January 2026

Contact foe-research@unimelb.edu.au if you are interested in applying

SNAPP is a global collaboration between The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) advancing evidence-based, scalable solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges at the intersection of nature conservation, sustainable development, and human well-being. Each year, SNAPP provides up to US $1 million total across 4-6 approved working groups. The SNAPP approach is based in collaborative science and encourages proposal development that is co-designed by a wide variety of stakeholders, sectors, and administrative levels, including local, state, federal and tribal governments, non-profit organizations, research institutions, and other implementing partners.

Proposed working groups are led by 2-3 Principal Investigators (PIs) from separate organizations and sectors, composed of 12-15 members from a diversity of non-profit, academic, tribal, community, government or mission-driven entities. Novel trans-sectoral collaborations that include local leadership are highly encouraged. Groups engage a full time research fellow and convene 2-3 times in person over a 24-month period. Between convenings, members collaborate remotely; work with long-term implementation partners; identify emerging opportunities for tangible, lasting change; develop and test tools and products; and publish research.

The most successful proposals will include:
– Developing Future Conservation Science Leaders: Capacity development for interdisciplinary science-to-action Research Fellows
– Visionary, Cross-Sectoral Science: Inter-organizational collaboration that would not have happened in the absence of SNAPP funds
– High Impact Research: Research outputs (papers, reports, scientific findings, information provided to decision-makers)
– Advancing Science, Driving Conservation: Acceleration and advancement toward WCS and TNC conservation priorities that would not have happened without SNAPP’s and engagement with a multi-organization project and interdisciplinary and applied approach.

Click here to view full funding guidelines on the provider’s website.

6. Digital Skills Workshops for HASS Researchers

Showcase your data collections with Omeka

Thursday 6 November, 10am to 12pm

Melbourne Connect

Introducing Omeka, a user-friendly web publishing platform designed for researchers, librarians, and cultural institutions to curate and showcase collections, exhibitions, and research projects online.

This workshop is for you if you:

Are interested in making your research outputs more accessible to the public or collaborators
Have digital materials (images, audio, text, metadata) you’d like to present in a structured, engaging way
Want hands-on experience setting up a basic Omeka site and learning best practices for metadata and item organisation
Want to build an online exhibition or digital collection but don’t know where to begin

Data cleaning with OpenRefine

Tuesday 25 November, 9am to 1pm

Melbourne Connect

Whether it be a spreadsheet we have built ourselves, or a dataset we have downloaded, messy data – inconsistent spellings, formatting, or text that needs to be split into different columns – can make our research data difficult to work with.

This workshop uses the open source tool OpenRefine to resolve common data issues, and produce a clean dataset for further analysis. OpenRefine runs locally on your computer and is safe to use on private data. It also provides a log of changes made so you can see what has been done, and makes the cleaning process reproducible.

7. RDU Supervisor Development Series: Chairing productive and supportive advisory committees – Thursday, 27 November

Advisory committee meetings play a crucial role in monitoring and supporting GR progress. This interactive workshop helps Advisory Chairs and supervisors understand the role and strengthen their skills in chairing effective meetings. The session includes an expert panel of experienced supervisors who will share insights, practical tips, and lessons learned from diverse disciplines. Participants can share experiences, reflect on best practice, and leave with practical approaches for leading advisory committees that contribute meaningfully to candidate development and research success.

Thursday, 27 November

10:00am – 11:00am

Register here: https://gateway.research.unimelb.edu.au/researcherdevelopment/rdu-development-programs/GR-supervisor-development-series