Max Day Environmental Science Fellowship Award – Australia

The Max Day Environmental Science Fellowship Award is an annual award of up to $20,000 per awardee to assist PhD students or early career researchers with their research. It provides funding support toward research expenses, courses and the costs of travel. Grants are GST exclusive. 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 award is named in honour of the late Dr Maxwell Frank Cooper Day AO FAA who spent a lifetime championing entomology, conservation and forestry, as well as helping other scientists. Through sponsoring this award Dr Day is acknowledging the support that he himself received as a young researcher to travel overseas to gain his PhD at Harvard. Following Dr Day’s strong belief in the strength of an interdisciplinary approach to research, only applicants who are able to demonstrate an interdisciplinary approach to their research will be considered for this award.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be Australian citizens or permanent residents at the time of application.
• Applicants should either:
  • be accepted to undertake a PhD (or equivalent research doctorate), have completed their confirmation and be enrolled in their program (at the time of the award closing date)
  • have held a PhD (or equivalent) for no more than 5 years at the time of the award closing date
• Applicants must demonstrate an interdisciplinary approach to their research work, address all selection criteria and conduct their research in one or more of the biological sciences relating to one or more of the following disciplines:
  • conservation of Australia’s flora and fauna
  • ecologically sustainable resource use
  • environmental protection
  • ecosystem services (either provisioning services, or habitat and supporting services).
• 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 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.

For more information, visit Australian Academy of Science.