1.1 Citizenship. Fellowships are offered to Australian citizens and permanent residents of Australia only.
1.2 Age. Awards are granted to applicants over the age of 18 years. No upper age limit is prescribed but generally awards will be made to those whose major contribution to their field lies before them.
1.3 Tertiary Qualifications. A Fellowship will not be awarded to enable the applicant to obtain/complete tertiary qualifications eg. PhD.
1.4 Nature of Project. A Churchill Fellowship will be awarded for the purpose of pursuing an overseas investigative project of a kind that is not readily available in Australia.
1.5 Submission of Application. The application must be lodged in the State or Territory of residence of the applicant, irrespective of the place of employment. An application can only be lodged in one State or Territory.
1.6 Interviews. All interviews are designed to be attended in person by applications, however where extenuating circumstances prevent this a video or phone interview may be permitted.
1.7 Citizens Overseas. An applicant who is an Australian Citizen, temporarily overseas, will be considered for a Fellowship if they are available to attend an interview in Australia and intend to return to Australia on completion of their Fellowship.
1.8 Joint and Multiple Applications. Fellowships are only awarded to individual applicants and for individual projects, except for a Joint Fellowship which has its own eligibility requirements. An applicant can only lodge one application per year.
1.9 Amount of Award. The value of every Fellowship is different as it is calculated based on the number of countries to be visited, the duration of the approved Fellowship and an estimated airfare. The average value of a Fellowship is 35,000 AUD. See point 3 for more detail.
1.10 Duration of Fellowships. The duration of a Churchill Fellowship is determined by the project aim and the length of time needed overseas to achieve this aim. A Fellowship is a minimum of 4 weeks and a maximum of 8 weeks. A longer itinerary can be applied for provided this is necessary to achieve the project aim. If called for interview applicants will be expected to justify the additional time needed overseas. Additional time outside of the approved Fellowship itinerary will be at the Fellow’s own expense.
1.11 Sponsored Fellowships. A number of sponsored Churchill Fellowships are offered each year, usually confined to a particular field of endeavour. All applicants with an appropriate project are considered for the award of a sponsored Fellowship as well as a general Fellowship.
1.12 Continuous Travel. A Churchill Fellowship must be taken as one continuous journey from Australia.
Contract. The award of a Churchill Fellowship is subject to the Fellow agreeing to be bound by the conditions laid down in a Contract document signed between the Churchill Trust and the Fellow. A Fellowship cannot commence until the Trust receives an executed copy of the Contract document from the Fellow.
Travel and basic allowances are granted as follows:
3.1 Fellowship Travel. The Trust will pay for all approved Fellowship travel and, whenever possible, arrange for tickets to be issued to a Fellow before departure.
3.2 Basic Fellowship Allowances. The Trust will pay in advance to all Fellows:
The following allowances may also be granted:
4.1 Fee Request Allowance. Financial support can be provided to cover the cost of tuition or a specific course. Limited support can be provided to attend a conference applicable to your project. If all for an interview you maybe asked to explain why your need the additional fee support.
4.2 Dependant’s Allowance. To help support a Fellow’s dependants when neither the Fellow nor the partner has sufficient means to meet this commitment whilst the Fellow is overseas. The allowance will only be considered if:
Allowances are calculated and paid on the following basis:
5.1 Income. No account is taken of a Fellow’s family income in calculating any allowances other than Dependant’s
Allowance.
5.2 Amount. Allowances are calculated based on the number of weeks of the approved Fellowship.
5.3 Overseas Living Allowance. An allowance as a contribution towards overseas living costs will be paid and will vary based on the number of countries visited and length of stay.
5.4 Deductions. The allowances paid to a Fellow by the Trust may be reduced by the amount received under an award from another source.
5.5 Savings. Unexpended amounts of an allowance granted for one purpose are not transferable to another purpose.
5.6 Payment. Allowances will be paid after approval of the final program or 2–4 weeks before the Fellow’s departure date, whichever is the latter. Allowance will be paid up to the total amount granted upon presentation to the Trust of appropriate receipts, or the account will be paid directly by the Trust, on presentation of a formal invoice.
6.1 Income Tax. The liability of a Fellow for Income Tax is a matter for decision by the Commissioner of Taxation and the Trust has no responsibility or authority in the matter. Any allowances paid to Churchill Fellows are likely to be treated as assessable income. The Trust recommends that Fellows keep receipts for all expenditure during their Fellowship and seek independent advice with respect to their eligibility for claiming tax deductions.
6.2 GST Liability. There may be GST implications for allowances paid to some Churchill Fellows who are self-employed or hold an ABN. Any GST liability will be borne by the Trust and will not affect the amount of funds allocated to the Fellow for their Fellowship.
The purpose of the application form is to enable the Trust to assess the applicant and the outline of the proposed project in order to draw up short-lists for interview. All applications must be made using the online application form.
The applicant is required to obtain a Project Reference and a Personal Reference as part of the application process.
References must be requested within the online application form utilising the embedded Reference Request feature. The referee will receive your reference request via email with a link to complete the reference form and lodge it online. You will receive an email notification when a reference has been lodged within your application for your review. No editing is permitted by you as the applicant.
We recommend that you identify your referees and make your requests for references early in the application process to allow sufficient time for your referees to write and lodge the references online prior to the closing date.
It is preferable that applicants select Australian Citizens as referees.
All documentation forming any part of a Churchill Fellowship application becomes the property of the Trust and will be archived electronically.
The awarding of Churchill Fellowships is a competitive process with approximately 1,000 applications received each year.
If your Fellowship application was unsuccessful we encourage you to read through the following advice and consider applying again in a future round.