Project Officer
National Health and Medical Research Council
An application made for this job — a tailored resume and cover letter that speak straight to the posting.
Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
National Health and Medical Research Council in Melbourne is seeking an experienced Project Officer to support grant schemes, peer review processes and post-award management across NHMRC and MRFF schemes. You will provide secretariat and administrative support, coordinate workflow, maintain records, and help ensure compliance with policies and guidelines.
You will join a small, high-performing team with flexible working arrangements and opportunities to contribute to strategic decision-making.
Qualifications
- Excellent attention to detail and accuracy in work output.
- Ability to work effectively in a team and independently.
- Ability to prioritise tasks and meet deadlines.
- Clear and professional written and verbal communication.
Responsibilities
- Providing secretariat and administrative support for grant schemes and peer review processes.
- Supporting grant round activities, including application processing, workflow tracking, and quality assurance checks.
- Assisting with peer reviewer invitations, conflicts of interest processes, assessment and funding outcome activities.
- Preparing correspondence, briefing notes, meeting papers and procedural documentation.
- Responding to enquiries from applicants, RAOs, peer reviewers and other stakeholders.
- Maintaining records and ensuring compliance with policies, guidelines and legislative requirements.
- Providing general administrative support to the section.
Skills
Tools
Job description
National Health and Medical Research Council – Melbourne VIC
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is seeking an experienced and high performing candidate to fill the role of Project Officer.
The successful candidate will be organised and adaptable, able to demonstrates initiative, sound judgement and a strong commitment to delivering quality outcomes that support research funding delivery.
Our ideal candidate will have well-developed organisational and communication skills, the ability to manage competing priorities, and a proven capacity to work collaboratively with a range of internal and external stakeholders. You will be comfortable managing administrative and coordination activities, maintaining accurate records, supporting business processes and contributing to continuous improvement initiatives. You will take responsibility for your work, demonstrate attention to detail, and contribute positively to a team environment.
What truly makes us a great place to work? It is our people and the culture we have built together. With an 87% response rate in the 2026 APS Employee Census, NHMRC employees reported high levels of pride (90%), commitment (94%) and connection to our purpose (95%). NHMRC scored above the APS average across key employee experience measures, including wellbeing, innovation, communication and speak up culture. At NHMRC, you will find meaningful work, supportive leadership, flexible ways of working, and a collaborative environment where people can thrive and make a difference.
Our roles come with broad responsibilities and minimal hierarchy, making it easier to get things done. You will be part of a small, inclusive, and high performing team with a strong, supportive culture.
We offer:
- A truly flexible workplace culture.
- A dynamic, diverse and supportive team across Melbourne and Canberra.
- Wellbeing programs including up to 6 free counselling sessions per year and a workplace that genuinely cares.
- Generous recreational leave, personal leave, cultural leave, parental leave and paid end-of-year shutdown.
- Study assistance and professional development opportunities that align with your career goals.
- Opportunities to be trusted to lead high value projects with the freedom to innovate and the support to grow.
- Strategic exposure where you can engage directly with senior leaders and contribute to decisions that shape our future direction.
The Research Foundation branch develops strategies for investing in health and medical research, leads on NHMRC's grant application and peer review processes for large scale schemes and post-award management for all NHMRC and MRFF schemes managed by NHMRC.
Our work includes the continuous review and improvement of research policy, grant guidelines, peer review processes, monitoring and compliance along with evaluating the impacts of NHMRC funded research. The branch also leads NHMRC’s engagement in national and international networks aiming to improve research assessment, research data quality and open access to outputs of NHMRC funded research.
The branch is comprised of the Ideas Grants, Investigator Grants, Research Administration, and Research Policy and Evaluation sections.
The Ideas Grants section is responsible for delivering the Ideas Grant and Postgraduate Scholarship Grant schemes, developing, implementing and reviewing policies, recruiting and training peer reviewers, and administering the Community Observers Working Committee. The team also assists with the development of the annual "10 of the Best" publication.
The Ideas Grant scheme (the largest NHMRC scheme in terms of application numbers) aims to support innovative research projects across all career stages and areas of health and medical research.
The Postgraduate Scholarship scheme funds health and medical graduates to pursue research based postgraduate degrees (PhD or Research Masters Degree), fostering internationally competitive and independent research within Australia.
What truly makes us a great place to work? It is our people and the culture we have built together. With an 87% response rate in the 2026 APS Employee Census, NHMRC employees reported high levels of pride (90%), commitment (94%) and connection to our purpose (95%). NHMRC scored above the APS average across key employee experience measures, including wellbeing, innovation, communication and speak up culture. At NHMRC, you will find meaningful work, supportive leadership, flexible ways of working, and a collaborative environment where people can thrive and make a difference.
Our roles come with broad responsibilities and minimal hierarchy, making it easier to get things done. You will be part of a small, inclusive, and high performing team with a strong, supportive culture.
We offer:
- A truly flexible workplace culture.
- A dynamic, diverse and supportive team across Melbourne and Canberra.
- Wellbeing programs including up to 6 free counselling sessions per year and a workplace that genuinely cares.
- Generous recreational leave, personal leave, cultural leave, parental leave and paid end-of-year shutdown.
- Study assistance and professional development opportunities that align with your career goals.
- Opportunities to be trusted to lead high value projects with the freedom to innovate and the support to grow.
- Strategic exposure where you can engage directly with senior leaders and contribute to decisions that shape our future direction.
The Research Foundation branch develops strategies for investing in health and medical research, leads on NHMRC's grant application and peer review processes for large scale schemes and post-award management for all NHMRC and MRFF schemes managed by NHMRC.
Our work includes the continuous review and improvement of research policy, grant guidelines, peer review processes, monitoring and compliance along with evaluating the impacts of NHMRC funded research. The branch also leads NHMRC’s engagement in national and international networks aiming to improve research assessment, research data quality and open access to outputs of NHMRC funded research.
The branch is comprised of the Ideas Grants, Investigator Grants, Research Administration, and Research Policy and Evaluation sections.
The Ideas Grants section is responsible for delivering the Ideas Grant and Postgraduate Scholarship Grant schemes, developing, implementing and reviewing policies, recruiting and training peer reviewers, and administering the Community Observers Working Committee. The team also assists with the development of the annual "10 of the Best" publication.
The Ideas Grant scheme (the largest NHMRC scheme in terms of application numbers) aims to support innovative research projects across all career stages and areas of health and medical research.
The Postgraduate Scholarship scheme funds health and medical graduates to pursue research based postgraduate degrees (PhD or Research Masters Degree), fostering internationally competitive and independent research within Australia.
As a Project Officer, your duties will include but are not limited to:
- Providing secretariat and administrative support for grant schemes and peer review processes.
- Supporting grant round activities, including application processing, workflow tracking, and quality assurance checks.
- Assisting with peer reviewer invitations, conflicts of interest processes, assessment and funding outcome activities.
- Preparing correspondence, briefing notes, meeting papers and procedural documentation.
- Responding to enquiries from applicants, Research Administration Officers (RAOs), peer reviewers and other stakeholders.
- Maintaining records and ensuring compliance with policies, guidelines and legislative requirements.
- Providing general administrative support to the section.
- Excellent attention to detail and accuracy in work output
- Ability to work effectively in a team and independently
- Ability to prioritise tasks and meet deadlines
- Ability to communicate clearly and professionally, both verbally and in writing
- Ability to use Microsoft 365 suite of software and other relevant applications.
- Experience in providing secretariat and administrative support.
To be eligible for a position at NHMRC, you must be an Australian citizen and be able to provide evidence of this. If successful, you will also be required to undertake a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check.
NHMRC is an inclusive and diverse employer that supports gender equity and diversity in leadership. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including People with Disability, First Nations peoples, LGBTIQA+ people, mature age people and people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds.
11:30 PM AEDT Wednesday,14 October 2026.
Candidates should familiarise themselves with the Australian Public Service Principles for candidate use of AI in recruitment as they guide the ethical, responsible and transparent use of AI tools by candidates engaging in APS recruitment processes. These principles are designed to ensure that the use of AI tools by candidates aligns with the expectations outlined in the APS Values and Employment Principles and maintain the integrity of recruitment decisions and outcomes.
To be eligible for a position at NHMRC, you must be an Australian citizen and be able to provide evidence of this. If successful, you will also be required to undertake a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check.
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is Australia’s leading Government agency for supporting health and medical research for the improvement of individual and population health. It does this through funding high quality research, supporting the translation of research into evidence-based practice and policy, providing guidance on responsible research practices and ethical issues, and administration of legislation governing research using human embryos. In addition, NHMRC has responsibilities in relation to implementation of the Medical Research Future Fund.NHMRC engages closely with a range of stakeholders across the health system and community to ensure that health and medical research meets the needs of the Australian community. This includes governments, researchers, biotech industries and other business leaders, medical, nursing and allied health practitioners, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and research leaders, teaching and research institutions, health services, community health organisations, consumers and carers.NHMRC’s responsibilities include engagement with the health and medical research sector and broader community to manage NHMRC’s grants system which has up to 57,000 external users and is responsible for coordinating and administering grants processes totalling more than $1.5 billion annually.NHMRC has a workforce of around 250 staff, with most located in the Canberra office, with a smaller number in our Melbourne office. NHMRC offers attractive flexible work arrangements which allow staff to work from home.NHMRC is dedicated to championing gender equity and diversity, ensuring equal opportunities for all staff in our pursuit of excellence in health research.
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