John Mitchell Crouch Fellowship

Open for application 26 April - 31 May 2023
Value: AUD $170,000

RACS most prestigious scholarship, the John Mitchell Crouch Fellowship, supports a Fellow to continue in their efforts making an outstanding contribution to the advancement of surgery or to fundamental scientific research in the field in which they are actively working.

Meet the 2023 recipient Assoc Prof Jonathan Karpelowsky and learn about his Fellowship activity.

  • Conditions, policy and guideline

    The recipient:
    - is required to provide a project report (800-1000 words, of publishable quality) at the end of the Fellowship year
    - is expected to attend a formal presentation at the RACS Annual Scientific Congress (ASC) Convocation ceremony in May in the year of Fellowship
    - must be prepared to make a 20 minute oral presentation at the ASC on their research work, including the contribution arising from the Fellowship.

    Please also refer to:
    - the Scholarships and Grants program research scholarship policy (PDF 203.34KB)
    - the Fellowship guideline (PDF 138.11KB)

  • Who can apply?

    To be eligible, you must be a RACS Fellow and have obtained RACS Fellowship (or your comparable overseas qualification) within the past 15 years.

    Please note, previous recipients and FRACS applicants are ineligible for this Fellowship.

  • Application requirements
    Your application is to include:

    - your career and employment details
    - your research proposal including: your project aim and research questions; research objectives; scientific literature references; research design; data analysis; limitations and assumptions and project plan.
    - a list of your five most important publications including the URL or DOI. Impact factors and impact range for your sub-specialty to be included.
    - a list of your five most important conference presentations.
  • Selection

    Selection
    - assessment is via your written application only
    - the selection panel is comprised of all members of the ANZ Scholarship and Grant Committee

    Awarding
    - the Fellowship will be paid to the administering institution upon receipt of a valid tax invoice as requested by the Scholarship and Grant team
    - payment will be made in one instalment by 1 March in the scholarship year

  • To apply
    Application is via the Scholarships and Grants Program online platform, RACS Unlock, hosted by Survey Monkey Apply.

    You may register as an applicant on RACS Unlock at any time, however applications will not display on your dashboard until the Scholarships and Grants Program application opening date in April. There is no need to re-register if you already have a RACS Unlock registration.

    Please note: emailed applications are not accepted.

    Visit RACS Unlock
  • More information

    - The John Mitchell Crouch Fellowship book (PDF 3.26MB) has a profile of each recipient between 1979 and 2014. This book is updated approximately every five years.

    - You can view a list of all recipients of this award from 1979 until 2018 on the John Mitchell Crouch Recipients List (PDF 62.53KB).

    - Rarely does one person's decision have such a profoundly positive impact on so many people as that made by Mrs Elisabeth Unsworth when she chose to fund an annual RACS Fellowship in memory of her son, as described in this article (PDF 1.56MB) which was published in RACS Surgical News in July 2006. 

    - The ANZ Journal of Surgery published a RACS review article "Looking back at the John Mitchell Crouch Fellowship: the most prestigious research award of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons" (PDF 117.14KB)

    The following Surgical News articles feature previous recipients of this scholarship:

    Alexander Heriot (PDF 134.78KB), 2016 recipient, Jan/Feb 2017 edition
    Zsolt Balogh (PDF 180.7KB), 2015 recipient, Jan/Feb 2016 edition

  • Contact
    Scholarship and grant team
    Phone: +61 8 8219 0924
    Email: scholarships@surgeons.org