The Australian Research Council's (ARC) National Competitive Grants Program, 
established in 2001, is the primary vehicle by which the ARC pursues its over-arching mission and key objectives.
Through its management of the program, the ARC promotes the conduct of research and research training that is of the highest quality for the benefit of the Australian community across all disciplines (except clinical medicine and dentistry).
The program comprises two main elements—Discovery and Linkage—which together provide a set of interrelated programs structured so as to provide a pathway of incentives for researchers to build the scope and scale of their work. Incentives are provided to researchers by a program structure that, broadly, targets funding in two areas—building research capability and achieving focus through critical mass.