Join our modern, research intensive university – ranked in the top 1 percent of universities in the world – in a location that combines the best of city living and a relaxed coastal lifestyle, by applying for a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship in 2024. Two Schemes are open for applications in late February.
Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellowships
- Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
- Vice-Chancellor’s Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Early- Mid-Career Research Fellowship
Three Fellowships available - any discipline
Applications open late February – closing date Tuesday, 30 April, 2024.
We are seeking to connect three outstanding early-career researcher less than five years post-Doctorate (taking into account any career interruptions) with our established, world-class, academics in areas of existing research strength. We are looking for candidates with an excellent track record with national/international recognition who propose a research project that is strategically aligned with the host UOW faculty.
The Fellowships offers:
- Fixed-term three year appointment commencing in the Level B salary range
- An additional one year of Fellowship salary following completion of the VC’s Fellowship (subject to performance)
- Project costs of up to $10,000 p.a. for three years.
One targeted Fellowship available - any discipline
Applications open late February – closing date Tuesday, 30 April, 2024.
This targeted Fellowship was established in 2020 in line with the UOW Reconciliation Action Plan.
UOW is committed to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, cultures and values are respected, and reflected in our research and teaching, and the attributes of all our graduates.
We are seeking to connect an outstanding early or mid-career researcher less than 10 years post-Doctorate (taking into account any career interruptions) with one of our established, world-class, academics in areas of existing or emerging research strength. We are looking for candidates with an excellent track record with national/international recognition; who are emerging as research and/or cultural leaders; and who propose a research project that is strategically aligned with the host UOW faculty.
The Fellowships offers:
- Fixed-term three year appointment commencing in the salary range Level B to Level C, and transitioning to a continuing position in year four if performance has met or exceeded expectations.
- Project costs of up to $10,000 p.a. for three years.
How to apply
Application is via the UOW Jobs website.
Candidates must download the appropriate Scheme Guidelines and Instructions, check they are eligible under section 4, and follow the application process set out in section 5.
Prospective candidates must discuss their application with their proposed UOW Mentor and the Head of the proposed host school at UOW, prior to submitting their application.
Mandatory confirmation of eligibility (where career interruption applies) closes Monday, 15 April, 2024.
Applications close Tuesday, 30 April, 2024.
The University of Wollongong is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. As an equal opportunity employer, and a recognised leader in gender equality, we encourage and welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and people including: culturally and linguistically diverse, women, disability, LGBTIQ+, and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians. The successful candidate is required to provide confirmation of their Aboriginal and/ or Torres Strait Islander heritage.
Contact for further information
University of Wollongong Research Services Office research-services@uow.edu.au.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I submit an application?
- Where do I find the Guidelines?
- Should I apply for the Postdoctoral Fellowship or the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Fellowship?
- I have submitted my thesis but the examination process won’t be complete before the closing date for applications. Am I still able to apply and advise UOW of the award of my PhD at a later date?
- I’m not eligible yet to apply, will there be a call for applications in 2025? When does the Scheme usually open?
- How can I identify and contact a suitable UOW Mentor to support my application?
- My proposed project would involve collaboration with a number of academics at UOW. Can I have more than one UOW Mentor?
- Can a UOW Honorary Fellow or Emeritus Professor act as my UOW Mentor?
- Who should I approach to complete the External Referee Report?
- I hold a PhD awarded by UOW, am I eligible to apply?
- I’m currently employed in a fixed-term role at UOW, and I obtained my PhD at a different university. Am I eligible?
- My PhD and subsequent research employment are not Australian-based, am I eligible to apply?
- How do I go about getting a confirmation of my eligibility where I’ve had significant career interruption?
- Will I need to provide evidence to support my career interruption eligibility claim?
- Is the fellowship exclusively intended for individuals with the rights to work in Australia?
- Where can I find details of UOW priority research areas?
- Is there a template available for the Project Proposal and Curriculum Vitae sections?
Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship applications must be submitted via the UOW Jobs Website. It is essential that candidates read the Guidelines carefully to understand and prepare all the elements of the application. Please note that you are not required to provide responses to the selection criteria contained in the Position Description. Responses to selection criteria for this Fellowship (as outlined in the Guidelines) will be part of the research proposal.
The Guidelines are available in the Documents and Guidelines menu on this page. Separate Guidelines are provided for each Scheme.
The Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Fellowship is open to candidates of Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander heritage ONLY. All other candidates can apply for the Postdoctoral Fellowship only. Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander heritage candidates can apply for either fellowship, or both, depending on which scheme best meets their needs.
To be eligible this year, candidates must have been awarded a Doctorate on or before the closing date of applications.
The Scheme’s definition of “awarded” is:
Have met all the conditions for the award of a Doctor of Philosophy, Professional Doctorate, or other equivalent qualification recognised as meeting the AQF Level 10 criteria. For qualifications other than Doctor of Philosophy, a substantial research component or equivalent outputs will be required to be competitive. If all of the conditions for awarding of the degree have been met but the graduation ceremony has not yet taken place, a letter from the Postgraduate Student Office stating this will be accepted.
So if your thesis has been submitted but not yet examined and/or awarded by the closing date for applications, unfortunately, you will not be eligible this year. There is no exemption process from this requirement as the assessment panel will be receiving applications in the week following the closing date, meaning all eligibility must be met by that date.
Yes a 2025 round is expected. Applications are anticipated to open in February and close in April for candidates who have been awarded a Doctorate prior to the Scheme closing date. Successful candidates will commence from July 2025.
You must approach and secure a UOW Mentor before commencing your application. You can identify and make contact with a UOW researcher working in your field of research by searching UOW Scholars. You should start a discussion on your suitability and your likely competitiveness for the Fellowship. UOW academic staff will be expecting potential candidates to get in touch. Please be aware that UOW academics can support one candidate only per Scheme in this year’s round.
The UOW Mentor Report template is available in the Documents and Guidelines menu on this page.
You will need to nominate just one UOW academic to be your UOW Mentor, that is, to be the primary person who writes and signs off on the Mentor Report. If the application is successful, you will most likely be employed in that Mentor’s Faculty. However, you can certainly have additional informal mentors and research collaborators, and those people can contribute statements to the Mentor Report if you wish (please check that your primary Mentor is happy to do this).
The UOW Mentor can be any suitable UOW researcher, either in a paid, honorary or Emeritus appointment. The suitability of the Mentor for the candidate will be considered by the selection committee, in terms of their experience and expertise in the research area and their availability and commitment to supporting the candidate over the three-year fellowship.
Where the Mentor has an honorary or Emeritus appointment, another UOW academic staff member (in a paid position) must be identified in the Mentor report who will connect the candidate into organisational support processes and systems where needed. This could be the Head of School.
You should select an external referee who knows your research very well, either a former PhD supervisor or current/former academic employment supervisor would be perfect. There is a template for this report in the Documents and Guidelines menu on this page.
As a UOW Doctoral graduate you are only eligible to apply if you have held a postdoctoral research/academic position with another organisation after the award of that degree, for a period equivalent to 12 months full-time as at the closing date of applications.
If you are a UOW Doctoral graduate and already hold a continuing paid position at UOW you are not eligible to apply for this fellowship scheme.
Yes you are eligible, as long as you also meet the other eligibility requirements outlined in the Guidelines.
Yes, international applicants are welcome and encouraged to apply, as long as you meet all the eligibility requirements as outlined in the Guidelines.
If your Doctoral degree was awarded earlier than 30 April 2019 (Postdoctoral VC Fellowship Scheme) or earlier than 30 April 2014 (Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander VC Fellowship Scheme) you must submit a Confirmation of Eligibility Request by email to research-services@uow.edu.au, attention Director Research Services Office.
The last date to submit a request is 5 pm Monday 15 April 2024. We recommend you submit your request as soon as possible (please don’t wait for the cut-off date) to ensure you receive an early response and have as much time as possible to work on your application.
For each career interruption, your request should clearly state the type/s (using the numbering given in the list in section 3 in the Guidelines), duration in weeks, whether the interruption was full-time during that period or part-time, and details (excluding any personal or sensitive information). Laying this information out in a table format would be ideal. Please calculate the total period of interruption you are claiming to demonstrate your eligibility. If you think attaching a CV would help explain your situation you are welcome to do this.
UOW will assess your request within a couple of days and contact you to confirm you are either eligible or ineligible to apply this year.
You do not need to provide evidence at the time of requesting an eligibility confirmation, or as part of the application process.
If you are shortlisted and invited to an interview, you will be asked to submit documentary evidence of your claims to UOW (may include employment contracts, medical certificates, etc as relevant to the career interruptions).
You do not need the right to work in Australia to apply for the UOW Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, as visa nomination will be arranged for successful candidates if required. Please note that the UOW Vice-Chancellor’s Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Early-Mid Career Research Fellowship is open to Indigenous Australian candidates only.
The current UOW Strategic Plan includes the research strategy at Goal 2. In addition, you can align your research project and application with UOW research priorities by working with a well-established research centre or institute. Your selected UOW Mentor will also be able to advise on the research priorities of the Faculty.
There is no template for the Project Proposal and CV. You will just need to ensure you follow the instructions (including formatting requirements) noted at section 5 (clauses 30 - 32) of the Guidelines.
Previous recipients
- Jodi Edwards - Weaving Indigenous knowledge to re-awaken cultural practices and knowledge sharing in SE Australia, Faculty of Business and Law
- Michelle Peterie - Bureaucratic Violence and the Weaponisation of Emotion. Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
- Cao Wang - Optimising enhancement strategies for infrastructure systems to achieve a resilient community. Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences
- Richmond Lee - Computationally-Guided Catalysis for Molecular Design. Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health.
- Myrto-Foteini Mavilidi - Integrated Task-Relevant Physical Activity as a Healthy Way to Promote Children's Learning: Balancing Physical-and Learning-Task Complexity. Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
- Kai Xiao - Ion transport based photovoltaic cell: integrating salinity gradient energy with solar energy. Australian Institute for Innovative Materials
- Nicole Reilly - Integrated mental health care for women in the perinatal period: are Australian maternity settings ready for a digital solution? Faculty of Business and Law
- Dr Zhiguang Feng. Control Singular Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Systems: Applications to Active Suspension Systems. Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences.
- Dr Jeffrey Kelleway (University of Technology Sydney). How blue are the estuarine forests? Assessing carbon sequestration and its relationship with sea-level rise in Endangered coastal ecosystems. Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health.
- Dr Mahdi Mahdiloo (Griffith University). Developing Optimization models for predictive customer analytics. Faculty of Business.
- Dr Elizabeth Sheargold. Finding Balance: Promoting Consistency between International Economic Law and Domestic Regulatory Design. Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts.
- Dr Isabelle Wolf (UNSW). Green Space, Liveability and Ethnic Diversity: A Geospatial Analysis. Faculty of Social Sciences.
- Dr Si Zhou. Exploration of two-dimensional metal oxides for photoelectrocatalysis of CO2 reduction. Australian Institute for Innovative Materials.
Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Identified position):
- Dr Marlene Thompson. Systemic responses to Indigenous families who experience trauma and violence: Reframing the representation and positioning of Indigenous families through a strengths-based and trauma informed approach in Australia and United States. Faculty of Business.
- Dr Anna Farmery (University of Tasmania). Managing fishery value chains for food and nutrition security – the role of fisheries governance. Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts
- Dr Christopher Friesen (University of Sydney). The evolutionary ecology and physiology of senescence in Australian dragons. Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health
- Dr Briony Larance (UNSW). Understanding and preventing opioid-related harm. Faculty of Social Science
- Dr Zhixiong Li (Iowa State University, USA). Health Monitoring and Prognostics of Non-Autonomous Dynamical Systems Using Degradation-Dependent based Ensemble-Learning. Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences
- Dr Liangxu Lin (Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China). Development of Hybrid Structures from Three Dimensional Graphene and Monolayered Nanocrystals Towards Wearable Energy Storage Devices. Australian Institute for Innovative Materials
- Anastasia Dalziell (Cornell University, New York State, USA). Avian Vocal Mimics in Changing Soundscapes, Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health
- Emily Howells (New York University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates). Keeping pace with global warming: Can threatened coral populations adapt quickly enough? Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health
- Biplob Kumar Pramanik (RMIT). Brine mining by integrated membrane processes, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences
- Shiyang Tang (University of California). Investigating Liquid Metal Enabled Next Generation Wearable Biosensors, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences
- Scott McKinnon (Western Sydney University). Reducing community vulnerability to disasters in Australia: what role does collective memory play?, Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research
- André Brett (University of Melbourne). Economic Growth and Environmental Change: Australasian Railways, 1850–1930 Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts
- Zhi Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences). Exploring exotic electronic states in silicene, Australian Institute of Innovative Materials
- Michelle Voyer (UTS). Advancing the blue economy: Social and equity dimensions, Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts
- Xingyong Wang (Nanjing University, China). Unravel mechanisms of UV-induced DNA damage and repair by spectroscopic and computational tolls, Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health
- Shanaka Herath (UNSW) Evaluating the value of urban location: a consumer preference-based approach to valuing urban amenity provision, Faculty of Business
- Mathew Horrocks (University of Cambridge). Breaking the concentration barrier: single-molecule techniques to study dynamic biological complexes, Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health
- Anja Kanngieser (University of London). L2C Listening to climate and community - sound-mapping sea-level rise, Faculty of Social Sciences
- Tran-Vu Khanh (National University of Singapore). Partial differential equations in several complex variables, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences
- Chong Yong Lee (University of Cambridge). Design and development of novel nanoporous materials for functional energy applications, Australian Institute for Innovative Materials
- Ginu Rajan (University of NSW). Advanced composite materials embedded with high sensitivity fibre optic sensors, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences
- Glenda Lucila Satne (University of Copenhagen). From acting to thinking: how do distinctively human minds emerge through cultural scaffolding?, Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts
One year post-doctoral fellowships
- Dr Laura Banasiak. Integrated biogeochemical modelling of the performance of an in-situ permeable reactive barrier for treating acidic groundwater from acid sulphate soil terrain for low-lying floodplain development (Faculty of Engineering)
- Dr Yi Du. Conductivity and dynamics of multiferroic domain wall in YMnO3 single crystal (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials)
- Dr Robyn Mansfield. A novel approach to discovery of new antibacterial compounds (Faculty of Science)
- Dr Paul Molino. Nano-engineering novel composite conducting polymer (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials)
Two year post-doctoral fellowships
- Dr Nicholas Dummer. Towards a sustainable energy future through catalytic alkane C-H bond activation (Faculty of Science)
- Dr Joselita Razal. Developing the next generation of processable nanoparticles for energy storage devices (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials)
Three year post-doctoral fellowships
- Dr David Camfield. Biomarkers for the prediction of treatment response in anxiety and depression (Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute)
- Dr Simone Ciampi. Can external electric fields tweak catalytic transformations (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials)
- Dr Cecilia Leong-Salobir. Colonial and postcolonial food practices in Australia and Singapore from 1900 to 1965 (Faculty of Arts)
- Dr Ziqi Sun. Rational design for improving environmental durability in dye-sensitised solar cells (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials)
- Dr Etienne Turpin. Trans-urban design research plus social change in southeast Asia (SMART Infrastructure Facility)
- Dr Kate Umbers. Prominent pigments and noxious toxins: how do flashy frogs use colour to deter predators? (Faculty of Science)
One year post-doctoral fellowships
- Wenxian Li. Transition metal oxides – achieving superior catalytic properties through application of high magnetic field processing (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials)
- Lowell Bautista. Diffusing tensions in the South China Sea: The role of institutions and mechanisms in (Faculty of Law)
- David Roberts. Resolving estuary-restricted fish population dynamics (Faculty of Science)
- Andrew Nattestad. Advanced thin-film organic solar cell architectures incorporating a highly efficient photon up-conversion system (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials)
Three year post-doctoral fellowships
- Jenny Fisher. Sources and transport of short-lived pollutants in the Australasian atmosphere (Faculty of Science)
- Bo Li. Next generation luminescence dating techniques for archaeological and geosciences applications (Faculty of Science)
- Deborah Mayerson. Why not genocide? Exploring factors that inhibit genocide in at-risk nations (Faculty of Arts)
- Ting Liao. Density functional theory design of quantum Dots/2D Semiconductor Heterostructures for Solar Energy Application (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials)
One year post-doctoral fellowships in priority areas
- Fenghui Ren. A multi-agent solution for Smart Grid (SMART Infrastructure Facility)
- Reza Reyhanitaba. Security properties of cryptographic hash functions and their applications (Informatics)
- Mohammad Namazi Rad. Generating a close to reality synthetic population for Australia (SMART Infrastructure Facility)
Three year post-doctoral fellowships in priority areas
- Guanghua Lian. The pricing and calibration of volatility derivatives (Informatics)
- Yong Yu. Research on novel cryptographic techniques for secure cloud data storage (Informatics)
- Luping Zhao. Effectively predicting mild cognitive impairment converters for Alzheimer's Disease: a machine learning approach based on enriched information (Informatics)
- Weilang Zhao. Green infrastructure: smart energy, people and cities (SMART)
- Ahmad Haidar. Protection and control design for smart electricity grids containing renewable energy resources (SMART)
- Michelle Dunbar. Strategic constraint-based modelling for optimising freight-train sequences in commodity transport planning (SMART)
- Dr Hailiang Yu - Tsinghua University, China (UOW mentor Prof Kiet Tieu)
- Dr Zhenguo Huang - Ohio State University, USA (UOW mentor Prof Hua Liu)
- Dr Kara Perrow – UOW (UOW mentor Associate Professor Marie Ranson)