478 grants are awarded $221m – for a success rate of 18.5 per cent

The big winners are, as usual, most of the Group of Eight, Uni Melbourne – 57, Uni Queensland – 51, Monash U 46, UNSW – 41, ANU – 40, Uni Sydney – 34,  UWA – 16, Uni Adelaide – 14. All up they account for around the usual two-thirds of awards.

However, six other universities equalled or outperformed the Eight’s weakest link, UTS (18), Griffith U (17), QUT (17) Macquarie U (15), RMIT (14) Uni Wollongong (14).

Measured by per centage success (for unis submitting 20 or more applications), the above average performers are,

Flinders U (29 per cent) ANU (27 per cent) Griffith U (25 per cent), La Trobe U (25 per cent)  UTS (24 per cent) Uni Tasmania (23 per cent) Uni Wollongong (23 per cent) Uni Melbourne (22 per cent) UWA (22 per cent), Uni Queensland (19 per cent), QUT (18 per cent) RMIT (18 per cent).

And things aren’t what they used to be for overall success rates. In 2020 the ARC considered 2875 applications and awarded 660 grants (23 per cent).