We offer funding of up to $1,200,000 for research projects that have the potential to vastly improve the health of New Zealanders. Projects can cover a diverse range of areas, including biomedical, public health, clinical, Māori focused, and Pacific health research. Most projects have a term of three years, but we can negotiate terms of up to five years.

The budget cap for randomised controlled trial project applications is $1,440,000, if required and justified in the full application.

As part of our focus on investing in people and creating more stable and sustainable career development opportunities, we also encourage early and mid-career researchers who have not previously been a first named investigator on a Project contract to apply as co-first named investigator in combination with a mentor/experienced researcher.

Eligibility requirements

If you are the first named investigator (i.e. lead researcher) on a project application, you must be employed by a New Zealand host organisation, have New Zealand citizenship or permanent residency status and be domiciled in New Zealand. For Pacific Projects, the first named investigator must be of Pacific indigenous descent.

There is a limit of two project applications per first named investigator/co-first named investigator.

Collaborating researchers from outside New Zealand can, at the HRC’s discretion, be included as named investigators on an HRC Project contract. However, the HRC will not contribute to the overheads of the overseas investigator, and the total proportion of the contract budget allocated to overseas investigators must not exceed 20 percent.

For more information about our contract requirements, please read the HRC Rules document under 'Helpful links'.

How do I apply?

First, you will need to ensure that you have an up-to-date profile on HRC Gateway. Project funding has a two-stage application process. The first stage is registration, followed by the Expression of Interest (EOI) stage. Applicants submit an EOI, which is then assessed. Top-ranked applicants will be invited to submit a full application for the second stage of the process. The proposed research in the EOI must be substantially the same as that in the full application.

Choosing a Project category

If you are applying for a Project, you need to select one of the following project categories:

• General Project: Supporting excellent ideas and innovations proposed by researchers, designed to improve health and wellbeing outcomes, equitably, for New Zealanders.
• Rangahau Hauora Māori Project: Supporting Māori health research that upholds rangatiratanga and utilises and advances Māori knowledge, resources, and people.
• Pacific Project: Making significant improvements in, or developing knowledge contributing to, Pacific health outcomes.

Please note: The Health Delivery Research Project Grant round is run out of cycle via the Health Delivery Research Investment Round. This round includes a range of different grant types, in addition to project grants.

For General Project applications, please use the 2025 Project Expression of Interest and Full application forms. For Rangahau Hauora Māori Project applications, please use the 2025 Rangahau Hauora Māori Project Expression of Interest and Full application forms. For Pacific Project applications, please use the 2025 Pacific Project Expression of Interest and Full application forms.

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.

Guidance on the Rangahau Hauora Māori category and the goals that are required to be addressed in your research proposal can be found here: Rangahau Hauora Māori Investment Stream.

Guidance on the Research Impact assessment criterion and feedback for applicants can be found here: : Research impact assessment slideshow notes.

Got a question?

If you have read through the documents below and the 'How to apply for HRC funding' section under 'Helpful links' and still have a question about Project funding, 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 Pacific Project Full Application Guidelines
27 Sep, 2024 4:59pm - 957KB

2025 Peer Review Manual
4 Jun, 2024 12:34pm - 475KB

2025 Project Full Application Guidelines
27 Sep, 2024 4:54pm - 978KB

2025 Rangahau Hauora Māori Project Full Application Guidelines
30 Sep, 2024 9:39am - 987KB