The National Health and Medical Research Council announces $440m for 298 new research grants

This brings total NHMRC competitive grants for the year to $482m.

As usual, YTD funding is concentrated among the top five recipients, with the universities of Melbourne, UNSW, Sydney and Queensland, with Monash U and Walter and Eliza Hall accounting for 60 per cent plus of grants.

Institutions winning $10m or more for the year are:

Uni Melbourne: $80m. Monash U: $69m. UNSW: $49m. Uni Sydney: $40m. Uni Queensland: $34m. Walter and Eliza Hall Institute: $28m. UWA: $19m. QIMR Berghofer MRI: $15m. Uni Newcastle: $14m. Uni Adelaide: $11m and Macquarie U: $11m.

Institutions with $5m-$10m in funding are: Murdoch Children’s Research Institute: $9.9m. Deakin U: $7m. Curtin U: $6m. La Trobe U: $6m. UTS: $6m. Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute: $5m. Griffith U: $5m. Menzies School of Health Research: $5m. Uni SA: $5m.

Top per centage performers: The YTD success rate is 15.5 per cent, compared to 19.5 per cent for all of 2018.  The University of Melbourne is a stand-out success, with 55 of 262 bids succeeding.

Of institutions making more than ten bids those with an above average result are;

James Cook U (40 per cent). Walter and Eliza Hall (30 per cent). Curtin U (20 per cent). Menzies School of Health Research (23 per cent). QIMR Berghofer (22 per cent). University of Melbourne (21 per cent). Deakin U (20 per cent). Uni Wollongong (20 per cent). Centre for Eye Research (18 per cent). UTS (18 per cent). University of Newcastle (16 per cent)

But not all the per centages are positive: There are a bunch more blokes than women leading winning grant teams. Year to date there have been 996 applications with female chief investigators, of which 13.8 per cent (137) are successful. In contrast, 17 per cent (202) of the 1188 apps with male CIs got up.