Continuously funded since 2008, the GDC program will allocate up to $3 million in round 16 to share between eligible selected programs to co-fund projects that address geoscientific knowledge gaps, advance exploration activity, and support the discovery and development of resources in the Territory.
The GDC round 16 guidelines have been released detailing co-funding amounts available, essential eligibility, project specific eligibility, the funding sequence, application process and successful applicants advice.
Changes to the co-funding criteria for round 16 include:
- co-funding to support non-diamond drilling has been expanded to include aircore, RAB or sonic drilling programs. Such programs will be eligible where it is demonstrated there is no previous drilling of any method in the project area (e.g. first pass drilling).
- co-funding to support innovative targeting projects. This includes camp- or prospect-scale geophysical and / or geochemical acquisition for target generation. Innovative targeting projects are eligible for co-funding where it is demonstrated by the applicant that the technique and /or approach is innovative or has not been previously tested in the area of interest. This category also allows re-analysis of existing samples sets or mine waste to include previously untested commodities and / or improve targeting (eg targeting for critical minerals). The acquistion of additional data may include a broader suite of multi-element analysis or petrophysics.
Applications for round 16 will open through GrantsNT on 20 February 2023 and close on 2 May 2023.
Proposals are competitively assessed against specific assessment criteria by an assessment panel. Information gained from the successful projects will become open file and released to the public six months after the completion of fieldwork to encourage further exploration.
For further details visit the Exploration grants.