I’m considering applying for a research grant, when in the process should I contact Straight Up for assistance?

Straight Up supports researchers at all stages of a grant application, but let’s face it, last-minute applications rarely bring out your best work. Rushed timelines lead to rushed decisions, whereas booking early with Straight Up creates space for a more confident process, with fewer late nights and a stronger final result.

We welcome bookings before a grant round even opens. That way, you secure your place working with our expert grant writers and we can build the best foundation for a strategic proposal that will win over the reviewers.

Explore our grant packages.

What is the value that Straight Up brings to a client’s grant writing needs?

Straight Up has secured over $200 million in grant funding, with a strike rate double the national average. We’ve also researched what wins by interviewing assessors and analysing successful proposals. This is the value we bring to grant writing, editing, bid coordination and funding strategy.

Our grant writing, editing, coordination and strategy packages give you access to our experienced team to help you achieve funding success.

Which research grant schemes does Straight Up offer support for?

Straight Up has prepared hundreds of proposals for mid-sized grant programs such as:

ARC Industrial Transformation Research Program – Research Hubs & Training Centres
CRC Projects
NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence
Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)
AEA grants
Australian Space Agency Feasibility, Demonstrator, and Supply Chain programs
Other grant programs of similar size and scope

We also offer grant support for larger and smaller grant schemes. Please ask us for our rates for these.

Explore our grant packages here.

Can small and medium enterprises (SMEs) apply for research grants in Australia?

Several of Australia's major government funding schemes are specifically designed to bring SMEs into collaborative research, recognising that innovation often happens at the intersection of academic expertise and commercial ambition.

Straight Up is experienced at fostering collaborations between SMEs and researchers, including finding collaborators for specific projects and specific grant schemes.

If you're a small business with a genuine innovation challenge or commercial ambition tied to research, explore our services and contact us to discuss how we can help you develop new collaborations.

Can international partners be included in Australian research grant applications?

In many cases international partners can be included but their role, and what they're eligible to receive, varies depending on the scheme. International researchers and research organisations most commonly participate in Australian grant applications as collaborators, which means that they contribute expertise, access to facilities, data, or networks, but the funding itself is administered through Australian institutions and flows to Australian-based researchers and activities.

What do grant reviewers look for in a research proposal?

In ARC Discovery rounds, reviewers typically spend under 15 minutes on a first read. If they don’t grasp your project quickly, it slips down the rankings.

Strong science is essential, but reviewers want to know: why does this matter for Australia?

What do you mean by bid management and how is this service different to grant writing?

Bid management is broader and more strategic. It involves coordinating the entire submission process — helping shape the proposal strategy, clarifying messaging, managing timelines and inputs, aligning partners, and ensuring the application responds clearly to the assessment criteria.

In many projects, we do both.

That might include facilitating workshops, identifying gaps in the narrative, strengthening value propositions, interviewing technical teams, refining stakeholder messaging, and managing the flow of information across large or multidisciplinary bids.

In short, grant writing focuses on the document. Bid management focuses on the whole process behind a strong submission.

Communications

I have a project in mind. What types of communications support does Straight Up offer?

The Straight Up team are experts in science communication and strategic communication, working with researchers, research teams, business and government. We offer comprehensive packages for a range of communications needs.

Our core team holds advanced degrees in geoscience, environmental science, biology, and public health, so you won’t need to explain the science twice.

If you have a communications project you’d like to discuss, contact us to see how we can help.

Co-Design

What is co-design and how is it used project development?

Co-design is a collaborative process that involves stakeholders as genuine partners in shaping how a problem is defined, the approach, and the solution. In a co-design process, stakeholders are invited to contribute their knowledge and priorities in ways that materially shape the direction of the work.

Funders like the ARC and NHMRC are placing growing emphasis on genuine community and industry engagement because co-design tends to produce research that is more relevant, more applicable, and more readily adopted.

Straight Up’s co-design process is a structured approach designed to strengthen your project from the foundations while avoiding common pitfalls. Co-design can happen during the bid preparation stage and after you have received funding. Our process delivers the confidence to align research and industry goals, choose and bring in the right partners and navigate a collaboration process that sticks.

Book a discovery call to find out more.

What does Straight Up’s co-design process look like in practice?

Straight Up’s co-design process developed out of our experience helping research and industry partners come together to develop shared vision for new projects. While we recognise that co-design looks different depending on the context (for example, the people involved, the problem being addressed, and the stage of the research or strategy) we apply a consistent set of principles: that the right people are in the room, that the process is structured enough to be productive and open enough to be genuine, and that what comes out of it is something participants actually own.

Our co-design process follow a broad arc.

1. Discovery and scoping

We begin by taking time to understand the landscape. We schedule conversations with key stakeholders to understand what's already known and where the real questions lie.

2. Consolidation

We consolidate what we have learned in the discovery phase and feed this back to stakeholders.

3. Facilitated sessions

We gather stakeholders for one or more facilitated sessions, designed to move the group to a point where priorities are clear and decisions can be made. We create conditions where all voices can contribute meaningfully, not just the loudest voices in the room.

4. Sense-making

After the sessions, we synthesise what emerged, identifying themes, tensions, and points of consensus. We help teams translate the outputs of the process into something useable such as a research proposal, a funding strategy or a partnership framework.

Who is Straight Up’s co-design process suited to?

Straight Up's co-design process is ideal for research teams forming a new collaboration, institutions developing a shared research strategy, projects where community or industry partnership is central, and teams navigating complexity, competing priorities, or the need for genuine buy-in.

Partnerships

How does Straight Up support projects involving multiple partners?

Many of the projects we support involve multiple organisations, technical teams, industry partners, or stakeholder groups.

Our role is often to bring clarity and alignment across the project — helping teams shape a shared narrative, clarify value propositions, coordinate inputs, and communicate complex ideas consistently across different audiences.

This can include facilitating workshops, refining messaging, managing communication across contributors, and supporting large or multidisciplinary funding applications.

We’re used to working in complex environments where different perspectives, priorities, and expertise need to come together clearly and strategically.

FUNDING

COMMUNICATIONS

CO-DESIGN