Briefing Papers

Reasearch Support Funding Explainer

22 Oct 20

Download: Research Support Funding Explainer

What is the Research Support program (RSP)?
The Research Support Program (RSP) provides block grants, on a calendar year basis, to higher education providers (HEPs) to support the systemic costs of research not supported directly through competitive and other grants, such as libraries, laboratories, consumables, computing centres and the salaries of support and technical staff.

Typically this RSP amount is $910,107,671 every year (not indexed) and this pooled amount is divided among universities and based on research income performance. This is measurement is by the amount of research income they receive from grants in a year (i.e. from ARC, NMHRC, State gov, industry partners, etc) compared to other universities. The more research income they report to have been awarded, the bigger portion of the RSP they receive.

This is an explainer for postgraduate/HDR representatives across the country to provide context on the outcome of the Federal Budget 2020-2021 announcement regarding HDR students. This will explain:

  • What happened
  • How the funding works and when it will be provided
  • How does it affect you on campus, and what you can do with this
  • What resources CAPA can provide you with to help support your campus campaigning