Grant Proposal – Team Quality & Capability
APP ID: XXXXXX
CIA: SURNAME
Team Quality & Capability statement
Deleting text in blue will give you a template to work with. But remember to use Times New Roman 12 pt.
Before writing this 1-page statement, familiarize yourself with the wording of the Team Quality & Capability
assessment criterion and category descriptors. You might want to echo some of the phrasing.
For more tips and suggestions, see the University’s Strategy & Writing Guide for Grant Proposals, available
from the Research Portfolio website.
We recommend you use the subheadings shown below. Contribution of junior members to overall team
track record is optional of course, depending on whether your team has junior members.
Expertise and productivity of team members relevant to the proposed project
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Whatever information you include in this section, it must relate to the project.
The simplest approach is to describe the expertise and productivity of each team member in turn. For
larger teams, lack of space may compel you to aggregate information for the team as a whole.
Taken together, the expertise of team members should cover all the methods and techniques detailed in
the Research Plan. You may therefore want to include some discussion of AIs’ expertise here. Experience
in running research projects (including NHMRC-funded ones) is also worth mentioning.
Productivity will of course mainly be about publications (i.e. relevant to the project), with an emphasis on
the last 5 years. But there may be other indicators of productivity worth mentioning, e.g. translational
outcomes.
Throughout this section, you should also draw attention to any publications and/or activities (e.g. HDR
co-supervision) that the CIs (and AIs) have previously collaborated on.
Team’s influence in specific field of research
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Whatever information you include in this section, it must relate to the specific field of research.
 Broadly, this section is going to tell the reviewers whether your team overall has a local, national or
international profile/reputation.
 Include any indicators of influence you can think of. They might include citations, invitations to speak,
awards, positions on committees and editorial boards, etc.
How team will work together to achieve the project aims
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This section is critical. It’s also frequently overlooked or poorly written. Whereas information relating to
the other sections above can, arguably, be gleaned from the individual CI track records, information
about how the team will work together cannot.
Your aim here is to reassure reviewers that your team has in place all the necessary management
procedures and logistical arrangements to complete the project on time and within budget.
The bigger the team, or the more geographically diverse it is (especially if it includes overseas
investigators), the more likely it is that you will need to demonstrate good communication and
management structures.
You will need to demonstrate that CIA can lead the team and the project.
If the team has worked together previously, you could simply describe the arrangements you have used
successfully in the past, then say you’ll be using them for this project too.
Contribution of junior members to overall team track record
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The NHMRC has not defined exactly what ‘junior’ means. For the moment, you will have to decide that
for yourself.
 In terms of capability, try to demonstrate that junior members’ skills and expertise are integral to
achieving the research objectives.
 In terms of quality, try to demonstrate that junior members have excellent track records relative to the
number of years they have been doing research and the opportunities they have had.
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