National Road Safety Action Grants Program Extended

The Australian Government has extended the National Road Safety Grants Program as part of its commitment to ‘Vision Zero’, which has a goal of no deaths or serious injuries on public roads by 2050.

These grants are part of The National Road Safety Strategy 2021-30, which sets out Australia’s road safety targets over the next decade – including to reduce the annual number of fatalities by at least 50 per cent by 2030 and to reduce the annual number of serious injuries by at least 30 per cent by 2030.

The Government is making $37.6 million available for allocation to projects or activities through the Road Safety Grants across five key areas of activity over three financial years:

1. Community education and awareness, including workplace road safety.

2. Vulnerable road users.

3. First Nations road safety.

4. Technology and innovation.

5. Research and data.

To be eligible, grant activities must involve one of the following: research and data collection; innovative approaches to explore a safe system approach to reducing fatalities and serious injuries on our roads; exploration of mechanisms to better inform road design to improve safety; innovative solutions for the protection of vulnerable road users; or collating best-practice evidence to inform future road design.

HVIA members may be interested in the technology and innovation funding stream, which aims to examine and conduct research into the effectiveness of new road and vehicle safety technologies, as well as projects which focus on new road safety technologies, innovations, or initiatives.

The research and data funding stream aims to develop or extend national road safety research and data capabilities, collate data to identify emerging trends in crash causation, as well as research into crash prevention methods to reduce fatalities and serious injuries.

Grants generally range from $20,000 up to $1.5 million depending on the scope of activity. Smaller or larger grant amounts will also be considered, including amounts over $1.5 million where warranted, as assessed on a case-by-case basis.

If an applicant’s proposed activity addresses the objectives and outcomes of more than one key area of activity they may submit multiple applications – one for each relevant funding stream.

All grant activities must be completed by January 31, 2026.

To be eligible, applicants will be required to make a funding contribution towards the grant activity. Contributions can take the form of cash contributions, and/or in-kind contributions, and/or contributions of other material resources. Consortia are also eligible to apply.

The grants are currently open and close on March 31, 2024. Further information about the program can be found here. Answers to FAQs can be found here.