2026 AgriFutures Gary Sansom Scholarship

Submissions closed at midnight 1 October 2025 (AEST).

IMPORTANT: Please read information below to assist you in completing your application online.

ABOUT THE AGRIFUTURES GARY SANSOM SCHOLARSHIP 

The Gary Sansom Scholarship aims to uncover future chicken meat industry supporters and leaders, providing funding and additional support to help students make their mark on the industry right from the beginning.

The Scholarship was established in honour of former AgriFutures Chicken Meat Advisory Panel Chair and Australian Chicken Meat Federation President, Gary Sansom, who himself was a great leader of the chicken meat industry. Mr Sansom was a long-standing supporter of programs encouraging new people into the chicken meat industry and championed several communication and training initiatives vital to the industry. This Scholarship in his name aims to do just that, encourage new people into the chicken meat industry and support them to build a thriving career in the industry.

The prestigious Gary Sansom Scholarship will seek to identify high-quality students, foster a career pathway in the chicken meat industry and support industry-relevant research. Worth up to $30,000, the Scholarship is broken down per level of study as follows.

  • Honours - $10,000 per year for 1-year
  • Masters - $10,000 per year for 2 years
  • PhD - $10,000 per year for 3 years

Each scholar is also provided with additional support and opportunities:

  • Attendance at poultry industry conferences
  • An industry supervisor (coordinated by AgriFutures Australia) who will provide study and career pathway support
  • Career pathway assistance post-scholarship and studies; The AgriFutures Chicken Meat Program will assist the scholar in making contact with industry members in areas where the scholar is interested in pursuing a career, as well as providing networking opportunities throughout the scholarship period.

The scholarship will support Mr Sansom’s vision for the industry – to ensure it is valued and respected by all sectors and the Australian community. It aims to develop leadership in the research community.

WHO CAN APPLY

The successful candidate will be a broad thinker; someone who wants to contribute to the Australian chicken meat industry long term. We are looking for people who want to make a difference in the chicken meat industry by conducting research that can be readily applied by the industry. We are also looking for people who want to contribute to the industry by providing leadership in the future.

Applicants must be an Australian citizen or resident and enrolled or eligible to enrol at an Australian University undertaking postgraduate study (PhD, Masters or Honours degree or equivalent). In addition, students must be willing to have a member of the Australian chicken meat industry as a supervisor and have a desire to contribute to the Australian chicken meat industry in the long term.

Students with an interest in, and commitment to, the chicken meat industry are encouraged to apply.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You may begin anywhere in this application form. Please ensure you save as you go.

If you need more help using this form, download the Help Guide for Applicants or check out Applicant Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

NAVIGATING (MOVING THROUGH) THE APPLICATION FORM

On every screen (page of the form) you will find a Form Navigation contents box, this links directly to every page of the application. Click the link to jump directly to the page you want.

You can also click 'next page' or 'previous page' on the top or bottom of each page to move forward or backward through the application.

SAVING YOUR DRAFT APPLICATION

If you wish to leave a partially completed application, press 'save and close' and log out. When you log back in and click on the 'My Submissions' link at the top of the screen, you will find a list of any applications you have started or submitted. You can reopen your draft application and start where you left off.

You can also download any application, whether draft or completed, as a PDF. Click on the 'Download PDF' button located at the bottom of the last page of the application form.

SUBMITTING YOUR APPLICATION

You will find a Review and Submit button at the bottom of the Navigation Panel. You need to review your application before you can submit it.

Once you have reviewed your application you can submit it by clicking on 'Submit' at the top or bottom of the screen or on the navigation panel. You will not be able to submit your application until all the compulsory questions are completed and there are no validation errors.

Once you have submitted your application, no further editing or uploading of support materials is possible.

When you submit your application, you will receive a confirmation email with a copy of your submitted application attached. This will be sent to the email you used to register.

If you do not receive a confirmation of submission email then you should presume that your submission has NOT been submitted.

Hint: also check the email hasn't landed in your spam or junk email folder.

ATTACHMENTS AND SUPPORT DOCUMENTS

You may need to upload/submit attachments to support your application. This is very simple, but requires you to have the documents saved on your computer, or on a storage device.

You need to allow enough time for each file to upload before trying to attach another file. Files can be up to 25MB each; however, we do recommend trying to keep files to a maximum of 5MB – the larger the file, the longer the upload time.