Key Indicators of NHMRC Investigator Grant Success
professor peter schofield ao | june 2026
Statements such as “past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance” are required warnings for investors. In contrast, the nation’s investment in our highest-performing health and medical researchers, through the NHMRC’s Investigator Grants, targets outstanding past performance as the key indicator of likely future impact.
Prof Peter Schofield
With 70% of the assessment score weighted to performance to date, NHMRC Investigator Grants, which are awarded across early-, mid- and senior-career levels, use track record as a key measure of research potential. These grants provide funding that supports both the candidate’s salary and a substantial research support package to underpin a 5-year program of work, rather than being tied to a specific research project.
Investigator Grants are highly competitive, and I expect that many potential applicants have looked at the scheme’s expectations and have simply decided not to apply. Success rates for the 2025 round varied across the career stages with 33% of applicants obtaining an Emerging Leadership Level 1 award, 19% an Emerging Leadership Level 2, 13.5% a Leadership Level 1, 14% a Leadership Level 2, and 20% a Leadership Level 3. With the application of NHMRC’s gender support initiatives, women were awarded 56% of all fellowships, exceeding the success of men in all categories except L3.
What then does it take to have your application funded?
Think like your Assessors: Focus on the Scoring Descriptors
As with all grant applications, it is critically important to read the guidelines to ensure you are completing the application correctly. More importantly, as you draft your application, keep reading the scoring descriptors that your assessors will use when undertaking their peer review of your application. Keep asking yourself, “am I providing relevant details and clear explanations that will allow my assessor to rank my proposal as outstanding or highest performing?” Meeting these high-level descriptors across all scoring domains is essential for funding success.
Investigator grants are scored across four domains, which are described below, but there is other key information that will influence how your assessors consider your application, especially whether you have applied at the correct level, the impact of any career disruptions, and your performance relative to opportunity. One other section is critical to your funding success – the Synopsis. This two-page summary is the only information that NHMRC staff use to select your assessors, so your use of optimal descriptions in the Field of Research, Keywords, and Peer Review Area is essential. Likewise, your Synopsis text. I have often read a Synopsis and not been able to tell whether the proposed research was to undertake preclinical animal studies or a clinical trial; information that would have a major impact on selection of appropriate assessors.
Publications – Top 10 in 10 (35%)
Applicants are asked to provide a citation and explanation for their ten best publications from the past ten years. The papers do not need to be related to the Research Proposal but the majority should be first- or senior-authored empirical papers which demonstrate your capacity to successfully lead research teams and projects to conclusion. Don’t include more than one or two reviews as, even though these are usually highly cited, they don’t show direct research leadership. If it is essential to include any middle-authored papers, then you need to very clearly explain your role and why it was crucial. Select publications in the major multi-disciplinary journals or the top journals of your discipline, which are highly cited and are supported by evidence of clear impact.
Assessors are told to consider contribution to science and the impact of the publication as well as to consider the applicant’s role. Provide a succinct explanation that highlights the paper’s contribution (what it discovered or showed), its impact (how it has changed knowledge, clinical practice, policy, etc.), and your role (your leadership, especially via first and senior authorships).
Everyone can write 1,000 characters on the findings of a specific paper, but that does not distinguish one paper from another. Thus, the information that you provide describing the Impact of each paper provides a key point of distinction. The impact description will depend upon your area of health and medical research. More fundamental papers may be assessed on their citations, editorials, patents, etc, while more applied papers may achieve their impact by translational outcomes such as clinical trials, or changes to policy, clinical practice, or public health. Other recognition of impact may come via awards or conference invitations to present to your peers.
Research impact (20%)
The NHMRC guidelines define Research Impact as being the function of both Reach and Significance. The discovery of a new treatment for a rare disease may have low reach due to the rarity of the disease but a profound significance because of its potential to treat the condition. Likewise, new fundamental insights into the biology of a common disorder would have a broad reach, but if the results need further translational research before they are able to be applied, they may have lower immediate significance. Both provide clear examples of research impact.
The score for this section is split between the impact itself (10%) and the applicant’s specific contributions (10%). Applicants often commence with an extensive description of their contributions; however, the strongest cases are typically made by clearly establishing impact by describing both the significance and its reach and then substantiating the applicant’s role.
Typically, an applicant will have multiple components that define their research impact – using subheadings for each distinct contribution helps build a compelling narrative. Successful impact claims will describe the guideline or policy that was based on the applicant’s findings, the clinical practice that changed, or the paradigm shift that changed the field’s direction. Where impact is still accruing, describe the current position on the translation pathway, rather than projecting future outcomes, remembering that verifiable evidence is always required.
The contributions section should outline the impact that is specifically attributable to the applicant – providing examples of leadership of the key outputs or translational pathways. Narratives that describe larger group or organisational achievements, rather than the applicant’s own role, are not judged as highly.
Verifiable evidence supporting the impact claims is critical, with successful applications providing concrete attribution. This is not simply a list of references but typically includes a broader range of evidence such as websites or other details that demonstrate both impact and significance. Examples might include a clinical trial registration, an ASX announcement of a commercial partnership, media coverage, policy guidelines, editorial comment, etc.
Leadership (15%)
Assessors are advised to consider four elements of the Leadership case, which are detailed below. As researchers, we are used to simply listing our various roles without supporting narrative in our CVs. However, in Investigator Grant applications, it is essential that you provide specific examples of your leadership achievements, ideally starting with the strongest examples. For example, serving as the Secretary of a professional society is an important example of Professional Leadership. However, stating the contribution that you made in this role is the information that lifts your case. For example, “As Secretary of Professional Society (2020-26), I led a multi-year membership campaign that doubled membership to 800” is much more compelling than simply stating that you served as Secretary.
Mentoring
Mentoring is more than simply supervision of PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. Here your role is not simply to show that you trained junior researchers, but rather that you proactively contributed to the development of the leaders of the future. Using specific examples of the outcomes achieved by your mentees helps give greater emphasis to your claim. For example, “PhD student Smith was awarded the Faculty Prize and awarded a named postdoctoral fellowship to work in the leading genomics group at University”. Similarly, your broader mentoring contributions within your institution or professional society may provide some outstanding content for this section.
Research Program and Team
Details of the leadership of your team and research program provide an opportunity to describe your role in the development and growth of your research group and the key research activities that you undertake. Your funding leadership for your team allows you to detail competitive funding that you have secured, especially as CIA, to lead specific projects. With national and international collaborations featuring more strongly in research programs, this section allows you to clearly define your leadership roles in these networks. Simply being a member of a collaborative network is not an example of leadership. Other contributions such as media engagement or consultancy roles to industry that are based on your research leadership can also be detailed.
Institutional
Detail your leadership contributions to the Department, Faculty and Institution. Again, including specific examples of the outcomes achieved. Depending upon career stage, these contributions will vary but may include service on seminar or research committees within a Department or on Institutional ethics committees. Leadership roles evolve over a career and would be expected to develop to include leadership of research centres or infrastructure facilities as well as organisational responsibilities such as chairing the Faculty research committee.
Policy and Professional
Policy contributions are more usually made in clinical, health service and public health research and may include your leadership of committees that are informing or developing health policy and guidelines. Go beyond the development of the policy and describe the health outcomes achieved by its adoption.
For basic biomedical researchers, your contributions may not have led directly to health policy or guidelines, but may have informed the research landscape or infrastructure.
Professional contributions may include service on Boards of not-for-profit entities, or Council membership in professional societies. Again, what is critical is not simply your service, but clearly defining what was achieved under your leadership. Editorial Board or Guest Editor roles reflect your standing in your field and are more important than simply listing journals for which you undertake peer review.
Knowledge Gain (30%)
Your Research Proposal is a body of work that you propose to undertake rather than a specific research project. A project description specifies what will be done and what outputs are anticipated. A program outlines a sustained research direction: addressing important questions, using well-founded approaches, and producing knowledge that can be translated (directly or indirectly) into health gains. Assessors are not evaluating the details of a methodology section; they are evaluating intellectual coherence and the significance of the research direction. Applications that read as detailed project plans score below those that make that broader argument with clarity.
Having secured competitive funding for components of your research program from other sources is a strong positive endorsement of your research capacity, and proposing to seek relevant funding for later components is not a fatal flaw. Your Research Proposal is assessed for its Knowledge Gain which comprises both the quality of the proposed research and the significance of the knowledge gained.
A suggested layout might include a short summary detailing why the research is important, what you will do, and how it will make a difference. This allows assessors to form a positive opinion of your proposal from the very beginning of the proposal. A background to the problem and its significance can lead to the specific aims and objectives. Two or three broad research themes can then be elaborated with sufficient detail that the assessor knows what you will be doing, but not a detailed list of multiple small studies.
Conclude your Research Proposal by addressing the feasibility of your plan, including briefly the research environment, resources, and collaborators. Addressing Risk Mitigation is a very valuable way to convince assessors that you have identified the major risks associated with your proposal and can demonstrate how they will be successfully managed. Finally, closing with a section addressing the Significance and Impact of your research allows you to finish strongly. Focus on the big picture, trying to be as detailed as you can in describing how your successful research program will make a difference.
Seek Critical Review
Your assessors will be fellow health and medical researchers, so you can never ask too many of your colleagues to review and critique your draft application. At the end of the day, it’s your application and you need to decide what comments and suggestions to adopt, but they, like we, are providing an Outside Opinion to support and help your application to be as strong and compelling as possible.
