Federation Fellowships are Australian professorial research fellowships that were instigated by the Australian Government as part of its Backing Australia's Ability initiative. They were initially designed to compete with prestigious overseas grants in an attempt to lure back high-profile Australian researchers from foreign institutions. The first round of Fellowships in 2001 were awarded to 15 researchers, 6 of whom were working overseas at the time.[1]
New funding to the scheme ceased in 2008, with existing fellowships continuing as before.[2] It was replaced by the Australian Laureate Fellowships.