Bond University Research Coordinator Role Pays $101,915 to Steer Grant Applications

Bond University is advertising for a research coordinator to lead its research funding support function from the Gold Coast campus at Robina. The post is full-time, fixed term for two years, and pays from $101,915.09 a year plus 12 per cent superannuation. Applications close at 11:59pm on Monday 23 November 2026.

It's a pre-award job in a university that has spent the better part of a decade trying to turn a teaching reputation into a research one. Bond's own research plan for 2023 to 2027 lists the same two measures of success side by side: an increase in external research income, and improved grant success rates. Whoever takes this role is judged against both, in a national funding market that has been getting tighter for fifteen years.

The reference number is 201413636. Questions go to Lesley Hogan, acting director of research services.

A small institution with a very explicit target

Bond was founded in 1987 as Australia's first private, not-for-profit university and operates four faculties: the Bond Business School, Law, Health Sciences and Medicine, and Society and Design. Vice-chancellor Tim Brailsford told The Australian in 2024 that the research push was a deliberate decision taken five or six years earlier, framed as a move "away from the lone ranger approach to research" toward teams. Research investment, he said, had risen by more than 50 per cent.

The scale stays small. In the Nature Index window covering July 2025 to June 2026, Bond recorded a fractional share of 0.79 across eight counted articles and ranked 104th in Australia overall, though it placed 32nd nationally in social sciences. The compact the university signs with the Commonwealth commits it to lifting industry-based research applications and income year on year, and records that more than half its taught fields of education were assessed as supported by excellence in research at its last TEQSA re-registration.

Put those facts together and the logic of the hire is clear. A university without critical mass in most disciplines can't brute-force its way to more grant income. It has to be better at choosing schemes, reading rules and pitching, because it gets fewer swings.

Pre-award, post-award, and what the word "coordinator" hides

Research administration splits at the point an award is made. Pre-award is everything up to submission: finding the call, interpreting the guidelines, checking eligibility, shaping the proposal, building the budget, collecting partner letters, getting internal approvals, lodging on time. Post-award begins with the contract and runs through spending, reporting and close-out. This position sits almost entirely on the pre-award side, with a quality assurance brief attached.

The position description groups the work into four loads:

• Funding support: identifying external opportunities and advising researchers on eligibility, positioning and application development.
• Application coordination: running major national, international, industry and philanthropic bids from proposal through budget, partner documentation, approvals and submission.
• Compliance and quality assurance: interpreting guidelines, running compliance checks, organising internal review.
• Capability and process improvement: workshops, resources, and better pre-award systems and tools.

The title undersells the scope. The coordinator "leads and coordinates the University's research funding support function", which means setting the process for everyone else rather than simply working inside it. That's a management job with a coordinator's label, and the salary reflects the label more than the scope.

The base rate: what every applicant is up against

Start with the national figures, because they define the difficulty of the work. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funded 190 of 2,347 Ideas Grant applications in 2025. That's 8.1 per cent, down from 10.1 per cent in 2024 and 11.1 per cent in 2023. NHMRC's own evaluation of its capacity-building programs found the overall applicant success rate fell from 25.9 per cent in 2010 to 14.6 per cent in 2022. Full outcome data sits on the NHMRC outcomes page.

The Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects scheme tells a different but related story. Under the two-step process introduced in 2023, the 2025 round drew 4,147 expressions of interest and shortlisted 1,141. Of those shortlisted, 47.3 per cent were funded. Measured against every expression of interest lodged, the rate was 12.9 per cent. The ARC's post-implementation review found the new first stage lifted applications by about 60 per cent, from 2,590 to 4,147, and pushed success rates from an average near 19.3 per cent to roughly 13 per cent.

Two numbers in that set matter for anyone doing this job. A 47.3 per cent conversion rate on shortlisted proposals says the full-application stage is genuinely winnable, which is where drafting, budget discipline and compliance checking earn their keep. A 12.9 per cent rate across all comers says the earlier task is triage: knowing which proposals shouldn't be written at all.

Where the job actually earns its salary

The version of this I've watched, at another institution: a research development manager I'll call Dr M took over a faculty's pre-award desk and spent her first month reading three years of unsuccessful applications. The pattern wasn't weak science. It was budgets. One proposal counted the same industry partner's in-kind contribution in two categories. Another listed a chief investigator at 0.3 full-time equivalent on a scheme with a 0.5 minimum. Both were knocked out on eligibility before an assessor read a word of the argument.

That's the invisible half of the role, and it's why the compliance bullet in the position description matters more than it reads. A coordinator who catches an eligibility problem in week one has saved a team three months.

There's survey evidence for the function's value, though it's thinner than the confidence of its advocates suggests. A study published in the Journal of Research Administration in 2019 asked research development professionals to rank 21 activities by impact. Support for large, multi-investigator proposals came first, followed by internal grant programs and grant team project management.

The resubmission question is the one most institutions handle badly. One review of research development practice notes that up to 90 per cent of proposals are rejected by sponsors, and that support for rewriting a near-miss proposal is patchy and rarely formalised. At an 8 per cent success rate, the second attempt is where most funded projects actually come from.

Pay, super and the two-year question

The base salary of $101,915.09 plus 12 per cent superannuation comes to roughly $114,145 before any salary packaging. The 12 per cent superannuation rate deserves a flag: most Australian universities pay 17 per cent, and at this salary the five-point gap is worth around $5,000 a year.

Comparable pre-award roles currently advertise in a band from about $94,000 to $116,000:

Bond's counterweights are real rather than decorative. Leave loading of 17.5 per cent on base salary, a standard week of 36.75 hours, salary packaging, free parking, and up to 26 weeks of parental leave in some circumstances all narrow the gap. On a strict cash comparison, though, the package lands mid-band, not top.

The contract is the sharper issue. Two years fixed term, twelve months' probation, with conversion to continuing employment "to be discussed at the end of the contract term". That's a conversation, not a commitment.

Who they're likely to hire

The selection criteria ask for a relevant degree and substantial experience in research administration or research development, plus working knowledge of national and international schemes including industry and philanthropic funding. Philanthropic is the tell. Bond's research plan leans hard on partnerships and commercialisation, and a coordinator who only knows the NHMRC and ARC landscape will leave half the pipeline untouched.

The profession's demographics help explain why the experience requirement is phrased that way. Australian responses to the RAAAP surveys of research management staff found 85 per cent of people in operational roles held a university degree or higher, with more than 20 per cent holding a doctorate, rising to nearly 40 per cent in leadership positions. In the 2022 round, 56.1 per cent of Australian respondents had been in the profession fewer than ten years. It's a young field with a lot of ex-researchers in it.

Formal accreditation exists. The Australasian Research Management Society, founded in 1999 and now with more than 5,000 members across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the Pacific, had 698 accredited research managers at foundation level as of its 2025 report, including 46 new graduates in the 2024/25 cohort. It isn't a hiring requirement here. It is a tiebreaker.

What this means for your lab

If you're a researcher at Bond, the coordinator is the person who reads the guidelines before you do, and the working relationship you build in the first month is worth more than any workshop. Send a one-page concept note before you write anything. Ask for a compliance check at least two weeks out from a deadline, not two days. The two-week version finds the duplicated in-kind line; the two-day version finds typos.

If you're at another institution reading this ad out of curiosity, treat it as a market signal. A two-year fixed-term pre-award leadership post at $101,915 tells you what a mid-sized university thinks research support is worth. Compare it with your own office's headcount and you'll have a rough answer to whether your institution is investing or extracting.

The wider pattern is worth naming plainly. Success rates between roughly 8 and 13 per cent at the two major funders mean most well-written proposals fail, and the difference between a funded and an unfunded application is often administrative rather than intellectual. Institutions that treat pre-award support as a cost centre get what they pay for.

If you're applying

The application needs a current resume and a cover letter that addresses the selection criteria in the position description. Generic letters won't survive first review at this level, because the criteria are unusually specific about interpreting contractual provisions and governance requirements, not just about writing well.

Three practical notes. Work rights in Australia must be current at the time of application and are verified before appointment. Pre-employment checks include reference checks and a certified copy of your highest qualification. Preferred candidates must also complete a Gender-Based Violence Declaration under the National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence 2025, and any offer is conditional on the university's review of that declaration.

The full position description and the application portal are on Bond's careers site, and the listing is also carried on AcademicJobs.com.

One concrete next step before you open the portal: find a single application you turned from ineligible to submitted, or one you killed early because the scheme was a poor fit and the team thanked you later. Write 200 words on what specifically changed. That story, not a list of schemes you've administered, is what a selection panel for a two-year contract is actually buying.