RAO Alert – Postgraduate Scholarships 2026 minimum data due soon

Minimum data for Postgraduate Scholarship applications is due on Wednesday 13 May 2026 by 17:00 (AEST).

Applicants must complete the required fields with correct information. More information on minimum data requirements are outlined in section 7.3.1 and Appendix C, section 3 of the Postgraduate Scholarships 2026 Guidelines available on GrantConnect (GO8345). Failure to meet minimum data requirements by the deadline will result in the application not proceeding.

Note that Research Stream and Scholarship Category are new minimum data fields for 2026. Using placeholder text, such as 'text', 'synopsis', 'xx', or 'Postgraduate Scholarship (including in the application title), etc., is not acceptable as minimum data.

Please remind applicants that the Application Title field should reflect the nature of the project and must not include the name of the applicant, or the name of the scheme (e.g. PhD application). 

RAOs are not required to certify applications for the purpose of minimum data. Applications should only be certified once they are complete and ready for submission.

Research Help Centre (RHC) and Sapphire Requests
Postgraduate Scholarship applicants should ensure:

• they and their supervisors have an active Sapphire account, or request access as soon as possible. All users are asked to log into their Sapphire account well in advance to ensure that they have access. Inactivity in the system may result in password expiry or s requirement to reset multi-factor authentication. Note that multi-factor authentication resets must come directly from the affected Sapphire user, not research team members or RAOs. Further guidance is available on our Sapphire webpage.
  Submission of a registration form and activation of a Sapphire account must occur at least 3 business days before minimum data or application close, noting that account activation processes cannot be guaranteed in less than this time.
• participating institutions listed as part of their application are available in Sapphire.
• if a participating institution is not available in Sapphire, please email help@nhmrc.gov.au, provide the institution’s name and website address (URL) and request that it be added to the system.