FELLOWSHIPSAustralia Council Fellowships of $80,000 support outstanding, established artists’ creative activity and professional development for a period of up to two years. 

Please read through the following grant guidelines. If you need help with your application, contact a Grants Officer now.

Closing date

The Australia Council offers one grant round each year for Fellowships. In 2017, Fellowships will close on Tuesday 6 June.

Each round closes at midnight on the closing date.

Technical and administrative support will not be available after 5pm on the closing date.

Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application approximately 12 weeks after the closing date.

Who can apply

Only individuals may apply to this category. You must be a practicing artist or arts worker and an Australian citizen or an Australian permanent resident.

Applications for funding to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander panel must come from Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander individuals. 

Who can’t apply

You can’t apply for a grant if:

you received a grant, or administered a grant, from the Australia Council in the past and that grant has not been satisfactorily acquitted

you owe money to the Australia Council

you received an Australia Council Fellowship awarded by any board or committee of the Australia Council since 1996 (excludes Australia Council Fellowships for Early Career Artists 2012-16, Australia Council Fellowships for Established Artists 2012-16, and Music Project Fellowships 2007-2014)

you have already made three applications to categories listed under Australia Council Grant Programs this calendar year (funding proposals submitted to categories under Other Grants and Opportunities are not counted as one of your three applications).

We will not accept applications from legally constituted organisations or partnerships in this category.

What you can apply for

You can apply for a range of different activity over the Fellowship period.  Some examples of the activities we fund are:

the creation of new work

research and development

experimentation

collaborations

skills development

professional development and training

residencies

mentorships.

What you cannot apply for

You cannot apply for the following activity:

projects or activities that do not involve or benefit practicing artists or arts workers

projects or activities that do not have a clearly defined arts component

projects that have already taken place.

Peer assessment

Australia Council Fellowships are awarded in the areas of:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

Community Arts and Cultural Development

Dance

Emerging and Experimental Arts

Literature

Music

Theatre

Visual Arts.

Your application will be assessed by a peer panel made up of area of practice experts in the area you have selected.

Assessment criteria

Peers will assess your application against the following criteria.

To assess how well your application meets our criteria, Peers consider a number of prompts.  

Please note that not all of the prompts will apply to your application, but they are examples of the things our peers may consider.  

Outstanding professional achievement

Peers will assess the depth of experience of the artist and the significance of their professional achievement. 

They may consider: 

the strength of your artistic career

the quality and diversity of activities you have previously delivered

the significance of your body of work

peer recognition

national or international response to work previously produced.

Viability

Peers will assess the viability of your proposal. 

They may consider: 

relevance and timeliness of the proposed activity

realistic and achievable planning and resource use 

the timetable of activity

the role of any partners involved, including confirmation of their involvement

where proposals involve working with diverse audiences or communities, peers will look for demonstrated cultural competencies and appropriateness.

Impact of the Fellowship proposal

Peers will assess the impact that the fellowship period will deliver to the artist and/or sector. 

They may consider: 

how the proposed activity strengthens your artistic practice

the impact the proposed activity will have on your career 

how the proposed activity will be documented, presented or shared with the sector

how the proposed activity builds or develops national or international collaborations

how the proposed activity contributes to diverse artistic practice.

Application form questions

The types of questions we ask in the application form include:

a title for your Fellowship

a summary of your Fellowship

a brief bio

an outline of three key achievements or career highlights

an outline of your Fellowship and what you want to do

a timetable of activity for your Fellowship

an outline of how the Fellowship activity will impact your career and have broader impact

supporting material as relevant to your project, including an artistic example, bios of additional artists, and letters of support from participants or communities.

Support material

You may submit support material with your application. The peer assessors may review this support material to help them gain a better sense of your project. If you need advice on what type of support material to submit, please contact the grants team.

We do not accept application-related support material submitted via post. Application-related material received by post will not be assessed and will be returned to the sender. If you think you will have difficulty submitting your support material online, please contact the grants team.

There are three types of support material you may submit:

1. Artistic support material

This should include relevant, recent examples of your artistic work.

2.  Artist information

You can include a brief bio or curriculum vitae (CV) for yourself and any additional artists or key collaborators involved in the project.

Bio and CV information for all artists and key collaborators, including yourself, should be presented as a single document no longer than two A4 pages in total.

3.  Letters of support

Individuals, groups or organisations can write letters in support of your project. A support letter should explain to the assessment panel how the project or activity will benefit the applicant or the broader community (and if applicable, how the project or activity will benefit community participants).

You can include up to five letters of support, with each letter not exceeding one A4 page.

What type of support material do we accept

Our preferred method of receiving support material is via URLs (web links).

You can submit up to three URLs, which may include video, audio, images, and written material.

Please note that these URLs can include a total of:

10 minutes of video and/or audio recording

10 images

10 pages of written material (for example, excerpts of literary writing).

To find out more about support material, including advice on how to get examples of your work online, click here.

If you cannot supply support material via URLs, you may upload support material with your application in the following formats:

Video (MP4, QuickTime, and Windows Media)

Audio (MP3 and Windows Media)

Images (JPEG and PowerPoint)

Written material (Word and PDF)