The ACIAR Fellowships Scheme provides scientists from partner countries to obtain postgraduate qualifications at Australian tertiary institutions. The individuals will receive an opportunity to advance their career with this fellowship scheme. However, the primary aim of the fellowship is to enhance research capacity in ACIAR’s partner country institutions.  ACIAR provides a number of fellowships scheme. Among them, John Allwright Fellowships is one of its high merit awards. Fellows receiving the Fellowship will conduct research in the area of agriculture.

Fellowship benefits

An awardee’s postgraduate studies must form a discrete topic related to, but not part of, an existing ACIAR research project. Ideally, the study program will allow the awardee to remain actively involved in the project research work throughout their studies. ACIAR will support coursework postgraduate degrees in certain circumstances.

Project leaders should make sure that a project will not be jeopardized should their nominee receive an award, as the ACIAR project must be able to function in the absence of a successful awardee. More than one person may be nominated from a project, but the project leader must be able to demonstrate that the project can function in the absence of more than one awardee.

Project leaders wishing to nominate project staff for John Allwright Fellowships should contact the relevant ACIAR Research Program Manager to discuss the eligibility of the candidate, possible program of study, and the impact on the project should a fellowship be awarded to the individual.

Eligibility

To be eligible for selection for John Allwright Fellowships, a candidate must:

• at the time of applying, hold qualifications that would be assessed to be equivalent to at least an Australian bachelor’s degree in a discipline that is relevant to the proposed area of postgraduate study;
• be a scientist or economist from the developing country partner, who is active in a collaborative research project by ACIAR at the time of application (in some cases, ACIAR will consider supporting researchers from “advanced pipeline” projects, i.e. in cases where a full project proposal has been approved by ACIAR);
• likewise, be jointly supported in the application by the Australian and partner country Project Leaders;
• Also, obtain approval from the employing institution who must agree to the absence of the candidate should he/she receive a Fellowship for the period involved in obtaining the postgraduate qualification; and
• demonstrate that his/her employment is on a permanent basis rather than a short-term contract basis.

Within the Fellowship Scheme, ACIAR strives to meet the Australian government policy on gender equity, and reflect ACIAR’s training policies and strategies.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

There is one call for nominations per year. Candidates must submit their applications by 30th April 2019. An offer of an award is only valid for the Australian academic year in which the institution makes the offer.

It is important that Project Leaders check the eligibility of proposed candidates before application. Further, you need to consider the selection criteria used by the Committee in the competitive process.

Also, the applicants must email their application along with the required documents.