Maintaining and building world class research capacity in Australia

The Australian Government will invest $11 billion over four years in research in Australian universities. This includes protecting the future of some of our most successful programmes, which the previous Government had left without funding certainty.

$139.5 million over four years for the Future Fellowships scheme, awarding 100 four-year fellowships each year from 2015 through the Australian Research Council (ARC). Future Fellowships fund mid-career researchers to ensure we have internationally competitive research in Australia, now and in the future.

$150 million in 2015-16 to continue the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, to ensure that the nation secures the benefits of the $2.5 billion investment in state-of-the-art research infrastructure since the Strategy was created by the Howard Government in 2004.

$3.3 million for an extension of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies programme to preserve important Indigenous cultural items in digital form.

Delivering our priorities

This Budget also implements the Government's commitment to direct resources to a number of key research priorities, including:

$200 million to accelerate research into dementia, including $26 million through the ARC, providing hope for the 320,000 Australians and their families who suffer from dementia.

$42 million through the ARC to expand the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University for research into tropical diseases such as dengue fever.

$24 million through the ARC to support the Antarctic Gateway Partnership as part of the strategy to enshrine Tasmania's position at the centre of Antarctic research.