1Introduction

1 Introduction

These guidelines set out the funding rules under the Australian Research Council Act 2001 for Linkage—International which is part of the Australian Research Council’s National Competitive Grants Programme (NCGP). The NCGP comprises two elements, Discovery and Linkage.

These Guidelines are written on the basis that it is the researcher who is the applicant. However, grants from the ARC are made to institutions, not the individual researchers.

The Commonwealth provides funding under Linkage–International for movement of researchers between Australian research institutions and centres of research excellence overseas. It supports two types of awards—

• Fellowships under international agreements for the reciprocal exchange of postdoctoral researchers (previously funded under the International Research Fellowships Scheme (IRF) and the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) Fellowship Agreement)
• Awards to build links between research centres of excellence in Australia and overseas by funding extended collaborations.