Researcher Development

Mentoring Program is a semi structured program that combines informal mentoring sessions with formal engagement sessions. It aims to support high-potential early and mid career researchers at Federation University around their strategic career and leadership journey. It also provides current academic leaders the opportunity to develop their mentorship skills and to make a positive impact in the career of junior researchers.

Mentoring program pairs are asked to identify the parameters/intention of their mentoring relationship at the commencement of the program.  The Research Office provides material to guide this discussion, including suggested domains of focus. Mentors and mentees are asked to sign a ‘Mentoring Program Participant Agreement’ which outlines their roles and responsibilities in the program.

A common concern for researchers lies in developing the skills, profile and momentum to move from being a researcher to becoming a research leader – an expert, a skilled colleague and collaborator, a leader of teams, projects or programmes of research. Advancing your Research Career: Strategies for Research Leadership supports researchers in taking a reflective and strategic approach to developing and managing their research careers. Providing engaging, flexible and interactive training in the key capabilities that underpin successful research leadership, the programme will help to ensure that researchers’ career goals are well articulated and supported by a professional knowledge base.

This program will provide guidance and assistance to researchers planning to submit nationally competitive grant applications, with focus on ARC Discovery Projects, DECRA and Linkage, as well as NHMRC Ideas and Investigator Grants. The Program will support other schemes based on opportunity and demand. Candidates will be provided with strategic professional development workshops with successful internal and external review to address various sections of the application, professional staff assistance for application related advice, budget planning and RMS support, and networking opportunities with a new community of prospective grantees.

Through the Expert Review Panel (ERP), applicants will also be provided an opportunity to receive feedback on their drafts from senior researchers, past ARC/NHMRC and other competitive grant winners from Federation University. Panel members will review and provide feedback on EOIs and provide their expertise and knowledge across various elements of the CGSP in order to improve the overall quality and competitiveness of our funding proposals.

Applicants interested in submitting category 1 funding application are required to submit an Funding Expression of Interest (FEOI) Form to the Research Services team. Academic staff with a record of successfully winning nationally competitive grant funding are invited to submit an Expression of Interest to join the Expert Review Panel.

Workshops scheduled as a part of CGSP 2025:

ECR network aims to provide ECRs with opportunities to expand networks, share knowledge and access support during the early phase of research career. ECRs include all researchers (casuals, fixed term and permanent staff) up to and including Level B, who completed their PhD 5-7 years ago. This excludes career interruptions such as non-research employment, part-time status, personal leave (for example carers or maternity leave).

The Research Impact: Creating Meaning and Value course will support researchers in:

• Defining what research impact is and why it’s important to individual researchers, groups and at institutional level.
• Planning for impact throughout a whole research project, from beginning to end – considering knowledge exchange, Theory of Change, stakeholder analysis, risk mitigation and collaboration.
• How to evidence impact and why it’s important. Thinking about accountability, responsible innovation, how to work with qualitative and quantitative data and capturing evidence.
• Developing a dissemination and engagement strategy - and identifying the difference between them. Developing skills for dissemination including writing for impact, using social media effectively, public and community engagement and promotion.
• Monitoring and evaluating impact throughout the research lifecycle: tracking progress, managing impact, evaluation methods and analysis.

Final reports for 2024 seed funded projects are now due!

Please download and complete the ECR Seed Funding - Report template (docx. 152kb).

Submit the Final Report, via email, to researcher.development@federation.edu.au.

All Australian researchers are required to be familiar with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018). To promote and support responsible research practices, Federation University provides Research Integrity training. The training consists of a comprehensive overview of how researchers can meet their responsibilities, setting out the key principles and practices of good research conduct, and guiding learners through the lifecycle of a research project. The training details are provided in the table below.

The Researcher Development Series includes all the additional courses, seminars and workshops facilitated by the Researcher Development office as needs are identified. These may include staff presentations or sessions delivered by external experts.

Competitive Grant Support Program 2025

Are you thinking of an ARC funding application this year or in near future or are you simply curious to learn more about ARC grants?

More information about the Federation University Competitive Grant Support Program (CGSP) aimed at supporting category 1 funding applications will be available here soon.  For more information, or to register interest in participating and be put on the workshop mailing list, please email researcher.development@federation.edu.au.

This program includes a mentorship program and 2 day writing retreat to provide time and a supportive environment for researchers to undertake writing for publication.

This program offers training in the core principles and practices of doctoral supervision to equip new and more experienced supervisors to support doctoral candidates’ development into independent researchers.