The Australian Institute of Physics welcomes the final report from the Australian Research Council on the revised National Competitive Grants Program. The 15 current schemes will be consolidated to 7 new ones, with the grant guidelines and assessment processes still open for consultation.

One particular choice stands out. Dedicated salaried fellowships for senior and mid-career researchers will no longer be available, with the funds allocated instead to project-based funding (and a continuation of ECR fellowships). This will support project participation for up to 20% more researchers at all career stages, and is part of a broader effort to prioritise ECRs. This is a welcome attempt to address the precarious position of junior researchers. However, it will squeeze further personnel funding from a university system which – under the Job-ready Graduates package - has already lost $4 billion since 2021. It may even impede ECR career trajectories, which are often opened by backfill positions for senior fellowships. We will therefore need to closely monitor the impact on physics departments.

The other headline change relates to infrastructure funding, which will eventually be removed from the National Competitive Grants Program entirely. Until a long-term solution is worked out, a temporary version of the Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities scheme will apparently operate. ARC and NHMRC funding has decreased by 19% in real terms over the past 12 years, and we have to hope that this long-term infrastructure solution will supplement project funding rather than competing for it.

Elsewhere, there is much welcome material on simplifying the administrative burden of applications, in order to reduce the turnaround time from application to award. This will hopefully avoid recent issues such as a Discovery Project processing time of 435 days.

There are multiple references in the report to further engagement with the research sector. We have therefore written to the ARC to request an ongoing dialogue, and strongly encourage members to share their thoughts by emailing our policy committee: spo@aip.org.au.

Margaret Jakovac, a PhD candidate in Education at Deakin University, is seeking experienced Australian secondary teachers who currently teach one or more science subjects outside their formal teaching specialisation.

Participants may work in government, Catholic, or independent schools. The research involves a 30-minute Zoom interview exploring how experienced teachers understand and assess their success when teaching science out of field. Teachers who also teach secondary mathematics outside their formal specialisation are welcome to participate.

Participation is voluntary. This research has been approved by the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (Reference Number: 2025/HE001215).

More information

A team of UNSW researchers has developed a new way to check for errors in quantum computers without significantly disrupting the fragile quantum information they rely on.

UNSW Sydney engineers have riffed on the famous Schrödinger’s cat, opens in a new window analogy to demonstrate a more efficient way to eliminate errors in quantum computing.

“Imagine you’re trying to find your cat hiding in one of eight identical cardboard boxes, in a dark and noisy room,” says UNSW Scientia Professor Andrea Morello.

Read the full article, published by Prof. Morello, UNSW Newsroom. 

The AIP National Executive has nominated the following candidates for the 2027-2028 term:

• President - Susan Coppersmith
• Vice-President - Kirrily Rule
• Honorary Secretary - Noel Hanna
• Honorary Registrar - Stephen Collins
• Honorary Treasurer - Dongchen Qi
• Awards Officer - Muhammad Usman

Further nominations from eligible members are welcomed. Nominees must be voting members of the AIP and be eligible to be a director under the Corporations Act and the ACNC Act. For further information on the roles and responsibilities of the National Executive, email executive@aip.org.au.

Nominations duly proposed and seconded by voting members and accompanied by the written consent of the nominee must be received via aip@aip.org.au by 21 August 2026.

An Australian Undergraduate Physics Participation Report, released today by the Australian Institute of Physics(AIP), reveals steady enrolment levels in university-level physics-major programs and persistent gender gaps.

Physics training is critical to supporting Australia's scientific research, high-tech industries, and innovation capacity.  A healthy pipeline of students enrolling in university-level physics is therefore a matter of national importance.

Key findings of the report:

1. The number of students studying a physics subject at first-year level remained broadly stable from 2019–2023.
2. Approximately 14,000 students per year study at least one physics subject at first-year university level.
3. Most first-year enrolments are from students not intending to major in physics, reflecting the important role of physics as a service subject for engineering and other science degrees.
4. Approximately 750 students per year complete a physics major at third-year university level.
5. Female representation in the physics major stream is consistently around 21–23% across all year levels, with no meaningful trend toward parity.

The female participation is in line with trends observed in Year 12 level physics, where women consistently make up around one quarter of students.

Click to view full size figures. 

Physics training underpins occupations as diverse as engineering, defence, finance, healthcare and advanced computing, and develops critical thinking and quantitative reasoning skills. It also positions students to contribute to pressing challenges ahead, including the transition to clean energy, the responsible development of artificial intelligence, and the development of next-generation materials. 

Read the full report

Download the media release

— Professor Nicole Bell, on behalf of the Australian Institute of Physics Executive.

The AIP has written to the CEO of the Australian Research Council, Prof. Ute Roessner, requesting that researchers affected by uncertainty around the ARC Future Fellowships transition be granted an additional opportunity to apply for the FT27 round. Member feedback has consistently highlighted that many applicants exhausted their submission limits after applying earlier than planned due to expectations that FT26 would be the final round.

Our open letter is available to read here.

For further information, please contact the AIP Special Project Officer for Policy, Prof. Martin White.

The Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Physics is awarded by the University of New South Wales jointly with the Australian Institute of Physics on the occasion of the Dirac public lecture, held at UNSW and sponsored by Diraq.

The Lecture and Medal commemorate a visit to UNSW in 1975 by Prof. Paul Dirac, who gave a series of five lectures. The lectures were subsequently published as a book Directions of Physics (Wiley, 1978 – H. Hora and J. Shepanski, eds.), the royalties from which were used to establish the Medal, which was first awarded in 1979. Past winners include Brian Schmidt and Lene Hau (full list here).

In 2018 some changes were made to the Dirac medal and lecture following a review by UNSW’s Faculty of Science and School of Physics to improve the selection process and to maintain its relevance and the quality of the awardees and the public lecture that they provide.

The medal will now be open to external nominations with selection criteria being:

a) distinguished contributions to the physics, and

b) demonstrated capability to present a compelling public lecture on the physics surrounding their area of research.

To broaden the scope, nominations are open for distinguished ongoing contributions to all branches of physics including, but not limited to, theoretical physics.

UNSW’s School of Physics has established a selection committee to judge the prize, drawing on expertise across broad areas of physics.

Nominations are now open and will close at 11:59 pm AEST on Monday, 6 July, with the view to selecting a winner and having them present later this year. The nomination form is available on the school website.

The AIP is pleased to introduce a new Teacher Associate membership category, designed to strengthen connections between the physics community and school educators across Australia.

Teacher Associate membership is available free of charge to teachers and includes:

• Updates on physics education, outreach, and events through our monthly newsletter
• Opportunities to connect with physicists and educators across Australia
• Resources and opportunities that can be shared with students to support and encourage interest in physics, including electronic access to the AIP’s quarterly magazine, Australian Physics

To be eligible, applicants must:

• be currently teaching at an Australian school;
• provide their school name and school address; and
• register using an official school email address (for example: name@education.state.edu.au).

Please note that Teacher Associate membership is intended for school teachers only and is not available to staff at universities, tertiary institutions, or other organisations. Teacher Associate membership does not include financial member benefits or AIP voting rights.

We warmly encourage school teachers with an interest in physics and science education to join and become part of our growing community.

Join us

The AIP’s 2026 Marie Curie Lecture Tour will commence in Perth on 23–24 June, launching a national tour featuring astrophysicist Dr Karelle Siellez from the University of Tasmania.

Dr Siellez’s public lecture, Painting the Universe: A Visual and Musical Exploration of Space-Time, explores the story of gravitational waves and the collisions that create the elements we are made of.

The Perth program will include Girls in Physics Breakfast events in the northern and southern suburbs, together with a public Marie Curie Lecture. The national tour will continue across Australia throughout July and August.

More information and tour dates

Educator, researcher and science communicator Noël Hanna has been appointed Honorary Secretary of the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP).

Dr Hanna holds a PhD jointly awarded by UNSW Sydney and the Université Grenoble Alpes, and is currently based at UNSW College in Sydney where he lecturers Physics. Hanna is a qualified high school teacher and Fellow of the Teachers’ Guild of New South Wales who has taught STEM subjects to students at every level from early childhood through to postgraduate study. Hanna’s research centres on acoustics, exploring the physics of music, singing and speech, and he is a member of the Australian Acoustical Society and the Acoustical Society of America.

Dr Hanna remarked, “I am looking forward to highlighting the enormous range of work that physicists do, and to supporting those who inspire and train the next generation of physicists.”

Across his career, Hanna has built a reputation for making complex scientific ideas accessible and engaging, and promoting STEM pathways for students. He has published widely for both specialist and general audiences and has delivered invited presentations around the globe, including mentoring teachers and academics in the Asia-Pacific region with the Australian Volunteers Program. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Universitas Komputer Indonesia (UNIKOM).

AIP President Stuart Midgley welcomed Hanna to the role and acknowledged the depth of experience he brings to the Institute.

“The AIP is excited to welcome Noel onto the executive as Honorary Secretary, leveraging his broad-ranging experience to further the AIP’s objectives. Noel currently sits at the intersection of teaching and academia and will enhance our engagement with the teaching sector; an area the AIP is focussing on in the coming years to strengthen the physics community for the future. I look forward to working with Noel and know that the community will enthusiastically embrace him and his passion for physics. Welcome, Noel!”

His work as an educator and science communicator reflects a commitment to making physics accessible and meaningful beyond the laboratory, an outlook well suited to the AIP's mission of promoting physics across research, industry, education and the broader community.

The AIP thanks A/Prof Michael Schmidt, outgoing Honorary Secretary, for his dedication and work for the physics community and we wish him every success for the future.