Our Explorer Grants provide seed support for researchers with transformative, innovative, exploratory or unconventional research ideas that have a good chance of making a revolutionary change to how we manage health in New Zealand. These grants are available in any health-related field (e.g. basic, clinical, behavioural, social, public health, kaupapa Māori, Māori health, Pacific health, and translational sciences) and are worth $150,000 for a term of up to 24 months.

Eligibility requirements

Your principal domicile and place of employment must be New Zealand to be eligible for a 2025 Explorer Grant. Your application must also have the support of your host institution.

There is a limit of 2 Explorer Grant applications per first named investigator.

You can find more information about our eligibility criteria in the application guidelines document below.

How do I apply?

First, you’ll need to ensure that you have an up-to-date profile on HRC Gateway. You will then need to complete an online registration form via HRC Gateway to signal your intention to apply for an Explorer Grant. Following registration, you can submit a full application online via HRC Gateway using the form available below. AApplication guidelines are also available below.

There are four Explorer Grant categories to choose from (you must select one):

• General: Supporting excellent ideas and innovations proposed by researchers, designed to improve health outcomes for New Zealanders.
• Health Delivery: Having the potential to directly inform changes to health delivery policy, practice or systems, and demonstrating a clear connection to a healthcare need.
• Rangahau Hauora Māori: Supporting Māori health research that contributes to Māori health gains, upholds rangatiratanga and uses and advances Māori knowledge, resources and people.
• Pacific: Making significant improvements in, or developing knowledge contributing to, Pacific health outcomes.

Your application will be assessed by subpanels within the HRC’s Explorer Grant Assessing Committee to see if it meets the criteria of being transformative, viable, and advancing Māori health. Unlike with any of our other grants, the assessment process for Explorer Grant applications is anonymous and all applications that meet the criteria are equally eligible to receive funding. A random number generator prioritises these applications.

Important points to note

Guidance on the Māori Health Advancement (MHA) assessment criterion and examples of how to incorporate this in your research can be found here: Māori Health Advancement.

Got a question?

If you’ve read through the documents below and under the ‘Helpful links’ section on the right and still have a question about our Explorer Grants, please send an email to info@hrc.govt.nz and one of our team will be in touch. Alternatively, you can phone us on (09) 303 5200.

Documents

Guidelines

2025 Explorer Grant Application Guidelines
1 Oct, 2024 11:39am - 717KB