Margaret Middleton Fund for Endangered Australian Native Vertebrate Animals Grant Program

The Margaret Middleton Fund supports annual grants of up to $20,000 for high-quality ecological research on endangered Australian native vertebrate animals. Open to PhD students and early-career researchers, this fund aims to enhance conservation efforts and enable impactful findings for management. Applicants must address ecological issues within Australian ecosystems, with a focus on empirical field-based research. The fund is managed by the Australian Academy of Science, ensuring accessibility for all eligible researchers.

This fund offers annual science grants of up to $20,000 each to support field-based, high-quality ecological research. The objective of the grant is to provide financial support for conservation-based research of Australian ecosystems (including off-shore islands and the continental shelf) that ultimately will lead to tangible outcomes for management. The scope of the research is open to terrestrial, marine and freshwater research on endangered Australian native vertebrate animals. Grants are GST exclusive.
The grant is open to PhD students and early-career researchers (within 3 years of completing their PhD or equivalent*). Grants are offered to successful applicants in November each year for projects to be commenced the next year. Funded activities are normally expected to have been undertaken within two years from the date of award. Awardees can apply for project variations if their award proposals are impacted by extenuating circumstance.
The Australian Academy of Science is committed to ensuring that all eligible researchers can be considered for awards and collects career interruption information to assess their opportunity to demonstrate scientific excellence. Accordingly, extensions to the post PhD (or equivalent) eligibility requirements for Early and Mid-Career awards will be provided for qualifying career disruptions.A career disruption involves prolonged interruption to a nominee’s capacity to conduct Full Time Equivalent (FTE) high-level research, either due to part-time employment or absence (for periods of one month or greater) and/or long-term partial return to work, to accommodate carer’s responsibilities, illness or other interruption.The career disruptions here must have occurred post the date of the letter advising that the PhD thesis was passed and resulted in significantly reduced research productivity or nil research output. Career disruption periods will be taken into account for those who would otherwise be beyond the Post PhD Career Eligibility requirements.

Eligibility

This award is open to applications for candidates from all genders.Applicants must be in one of the two below categories.Be a student enrolled for a PhD at an Australian institute and hold an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) scholarship or university scholarship.Be within 3 years of having received a PhD (or equivalent) and hold a postdoctoral position at a recognised Australian research institute, e.g. CSIRO or a university.The research must address ecological and conservation problems in Australian systems.The work should lead to publication in high quality ecological or conservation/management journals. Journal page charges up to a maximum of $2,000 may be supported.Applicants can only receive funding from the same research or travelling research award once in a three calendar year period.Applicants may apply for more than one award but can only receive one Academy travelling or research award per calendar year.

Ineligibility

This grant does not provide funds for bench fees, managerial, visa, insurance or infrastructure costs, or salaries.Conference travel is not supported.