Mary Lugton Postdoctoral Fellowships

Overview

The Mary Lugton Scholarship Fund provides postdoctoral fellowships and graduate research scholarships to researchers at the University of Melbourne. The Mary Lugton Postdoctoral Fellowship is named for its generous donor, Ms Mary Evelyn Lugton, who was a valued member of the University’s alumni and staff communities. She was a student of the University of Melbourne and worked for many years in senior roles in the Baillieu Library, before becoming the University Bibliographer from 1978 to 1989.

Fellowship awards rotate across the following six disciplines (two disciplines per year):  art conservation and medicine, science and botany, and engineering and history. The table below lists the disciplines for which fellowships will be awarded in 2025-2027.

This is a Fellowship scheme for early career researchers who have been awarded a PhD within the last 5 years. Applicants who have had career interruptions or who have worked in an academic research organisation for less than 5 years FTE may still apply and complete the additional Eligibility Exemption Request (EER) portion of the full application form.

Funding

Two Postdoctoral Fellowships (one Fellowship for each discipline for that year) will be offered per year. Fellowships will be for two years’ duration, commencing at Academic Level A.6. Funding is for salary (including on-costs).

Fellows will receive up to $25,000 to be spent on project costs over the term of their Fellowship, funded by their host Faculty.

Eligibility

The funding guidelines for the current offering of the Mary Lugton Fellowships is linked below under 'supporting documents'. Please ensure that you are eligible to apply for this program before beginning your submission. If you have any queries on eligibility that are not satisfied by the attached funding guidelines document, please contact the RIC Researcher Development Schemes team on the details below.

How to apply

1. Review the Funding Guidelines

   Read the Mary Lugton Fellowships guidelines under 'supporting documents' below.

2. Establish an Academic Contact

   • All applicants are required to establish an Academic Contact at the University of Melbourne. The Academic Contact's details must be listed in Part F of the application form. The Academic Contact nominated in the application should be a regular point of contact at the University of Melbourne. They are expected to endorse your application, provide informal mentoring to the successful fellows throughout their Fellowships, or nominate an appropriate mentor. To find academics in your field, please use the University’s Find an Expert search tool.
   • Provide the Endorsement Declaration form (Using the template available under the  'supporting documents' section below) to your Academic Contact and request them to submit the fully signed Endorsement Declaration via email to res-devschemes@unimelb.edu.au by the application due date.

   Ensure that you are aware of any additional submission requirements specific to the Faculty/School you are applying to work in.

   Faculty	Contact	Instructions
   Architecture, Building and Planning	N/A
   Arts	N/A
   Business & Economics	Alex Campbell, fbe-research@unimelb.edu.au	Submit straight to RIC
   Engineering and Information Technology	FEIT Research Services, FEIT-research@unimelb.edu.au
   Education	N/A
   Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences	MDHS Grants, mdhs-grants@unimelb.edu.au
   Law	N/A
   Science	Science Research Office, science-internalfunding@unimelb.edu.au	Submit straight to RIC
   Fine Arts & Music	Charlotte Midson, fineartsmusic-research@unimelb.edu.au	please contact FAM Research Office at fineartsmusic-research@unimelb.edu.au if you are planning on submitting an application

3. Complete the application form (including Eligibility Exemption Requests if relevant)

   • Log in to SmartyGrants to begin your application. You will receive a PDF of the final application by email once you have submitted in SmartyGrants.
   • If you do not meet all of the eligibility criteria due to exceptional circumstances, please provide additional details in part B-1 of the application.
   • If your PhD was awarded more than 5 years ago but you have experienced an eligible career interruption as identified in section 3 of the funding guidelines or you have worked in an academic research organisation for less than 5 years FTE you must complete an Eligibility Exemption Request (EER) at Part B-1 of the application form. An EER calculator has been provided with the 'Supporting documents' on this webpage to help applicants prepare an EER.
   • Ensure that your referees submit their written testimonials via email to res-devschemes@unimelb.edu.au by the application due date. You will need to list their contact details in Part G of the application form.

4. .Submit the application form to the Themis Grants Submission Workbench.

   Attach the final application PDF to your Themis workbench submission and ensure the status is 'Forwarded to Hod' or 'Submitted to Research Office' by the application due date.  A guide on how to complete the workbench submission is found here.

   Here are a few things that will help you with your Themis submission:

   • Access the workbench via Themis Homepage  > UoM Research Self-Service > Grants and Contracts > Grants Submission Workbench.
   • When filling out your submission details on the first page, select "4 - internal grant sponsored by UoM" as the type of submission.
   • On the sponsorship page, search for "Mary Lugton Postdoctoral Fellowships - 2025". Add the '%' mark before entering part of the scheme name (e.g., "%Early") and click on search.
   • Ensure you attach a PDF copy of your SmartyGrants application.
   • On the validation page, verify the listed Head of Department and change the status to 'Forwarded to HoD' before submitting. Do not add any other individuals (reviewers, etc.) on this page as it is not relevant to this program.
   • The status of the workbench submission should be 'Forwarded to HoD' by the submission due date.

   We understand that electronic approval from the Head of Department (HoD) may experience some delay. If you are unfamiliar with the approval process, your faculty research office can provide assistance.

   Technical Support: In case you encounter any technical difficulties with the submission, kindly email res-devschemes@unimelb.edu.au with your Themis submission number (TS), and we will do our best to assist.

Supporting documents

• 2025 Funding Guidelines
• Link to Application Form
• How to create a grant submission in Themis
• EER calculator
• Project Description Template
• Endorsement Declaration Template
• 2025 Webinar slides
• 2025 Webinar recording and Passcode: O&$6yb5s

Contacts