This call is for attendance at a 2025 - early 2026 conference or event that supports professional development of fixed term early career researchers (ECRs). This funding round will open on 26 August 2025 and closes on 14 September 2025. Decisions will be announced on 23 September 2025.
Eligibility:
You must be a fixed term ECR (postdoc, research assistant, teaching fellow or other ECR on a fixed term contract) based in Wellington.
Approved funding will go toward costs associated with travel to/attendance at a conference or event that assists in your research development. Eligible costs include registration fees, airfares and/or accommodation.
Travel must take place within six months of the date on which funding is announced (24 March 2026).
Funding available:
Up to $500 per award (and up to five awards granted per round).
How to Apply: Please fill in the form linked below and send the completed form, along with your CV, to wellington.postdoc.society@vuw.ac.nz by 14 September 2025.
The Aotearoa New Zealand Tāwhia Te Mana Research Fellowships are administered on behalf of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
The Fellowships will support researchers at different career stages to produce excellent and impactful research and to develop into leaders of the Aotearoa New Zealand research system. It is expected that Fellows, throughout their careers, will contribute to positive outcomes for Aotearoa New Zealand. Receipt of an Aotearoa New Zealand Tāwhia Te Mana Research Fellowship is expected to have significant value for the future career development and leadership potential of a researcher.
*2025 applications have now closed, however this fellowship is expected to be offered again in the second half of 2026 *
Administered by the Royal Society, The Catalyst:Seeding facilitates new small and medium pre-research strategic partnerships that cannot be supported through other means, and with a view to developing full collaborations that could be supported through Catalyst: Strategic over time.
The July 2025 call is now open. The closing date for New Zealand applications is 16 October 2024.
The fund is an opportunity for VUW to identify key strategic research directions opportunities that enhance VUW’s reputation, create new relationships with communities and collaborators and seed new large-scale initiatives. The majority of successful research project applications will be funded for up to $25,000 for projects lasting up to two years, although the committee may award funding of up to $40,000 in exceptional cases.
The fund supports:
1. Staff to engage in ambitious research.
2. The delivery of the University’s strategic aims and/or of Faculty- specific research strategies aligned to the Ambitiousresearch for transformative impact strategy.
3. Projects that leverage VUW’s location in Aotearoa New Zealand including those that reflect the significant value inherent in bringing mātauranga Māori to bear on both basic and applied research across all disciplines.
4. Projects with the potential to mobilise research outcomes for transformative impact, including impact within the academy.
5. High-quality research with the potential to contribute to key strategic outcomes including but not limited to applications for external research income, the production of high-impact outputs, increased international collaboration and developing or strengthening connections with external partners outside the academy locally, nationally, and internationally.
FSRG funding rounds are Faculty-specific. Please consult with your Faculty for application deadlines.
The Health Research Council established the Sir Charles Hercus Health Research Fellowship as a contribution to building New Zealand’s future capability to conduct world-class research. This fellowship provides support for emerging scientists who have demonstrated outstanding potential to develop into highly skilled researchers able to initiate new avenues of investigation. Up to $600,000 is available over four years. Registrations are expected to open in June 2026.
The Ki te Pae Research Excellence Awards celebrate ambitious research that delivers transformative impact. The Awards acknowledge the excellence of our researchers:
- asking bold questions
- pursuing innovative solutions
- expanding creativity and human knowledge
- imagining different ways of understanding the human condition
- collaborating and engaging with iwi, hapū, marae, communities, government, scholarship, industry, and commerce to develop new insights of direct relevance to these groups.
Each year, up to three Early Career Researcher Awards of $10,000 will be awarded.
Marsden Fund Fast-Start grants come from a special pool of funds set aside for emerging researchers (up to seven years after the conferment of their PhD). Funding is set at NZ$120,000 (excluding GST) per year for three years.
Applications open annually, with the Expressions of Interest deadline usually falling in February.
If you are a VUW staff member and have Marsden-related questions, please contact Hayden at the research office (hayden.thorne@vuw.ac.nz)
The HFSP fellowship program supports proposals for frontier, potentially transformative research in the life sciences. Applications for high-risk projects are particularly encouraged.
The projects should be interdisciplinary in nature and should challenge existing paradigms by using novel approaches and techniques. Scientifically, they should address an important problem or a barrier to progress in the field.
HFSP postdoctoral fellowships encourage early career scientists to broaden their research skills by moving into new areas of study while working in a new country.
Two different fellowships are available:
Long-Term Fellowships (LTF) are for applicants with a PhD on a biological topic who want to embark on a novel and frontier project focussing on the life sciences.
Cross-Disciplinary Fellowships (CDF) are for applicants who hold a doctoral degree from a non-biological discipline (e.g. physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering or computer sciences) and who have not worked in the life sciences before.
The 2025 round has closed, keep an eye out in early 2026 for details of the next round.
