Key Dates

Next Grant Round:
Applications for funding will open early 2025. 
> Information about our Grants Program

Independent Grants Panel:
Results of the recent EOI will be notified Dec 2024.
> Information about our Panel  

We can help:  grants@accan.org.au
or phone 02 9288 4000

Grants Information

Round Guidelines

Round Priorities

How to apply

Who can apply?

What is eligible?

How Grants are assessed

Welcome

ACCAN works towards achieving communications services that are trusted, inclusive, and available for all.

With this aim, the ACCAN Grants Program funds projects to enable research on telecommunications issues, represent telecommunications consumers, or create educational tools which empower consumers to understand telecommunications products and services and make decisions in their own interests.

On the following pages you will find all the information you need to decide if your project idea is eligible for an ACCAN Grant, and how to apply. 

To be eligible, projects must address systemic telecommunications consumer issues. Have a browse through the following ACCAN Grants Projects to get a feel for the type of work that is funded under the Program.

Charles Sturt University

Telecommunications accounts cannot be held jointly by multiple parties. "Family Plans" are commonly promoted as an economic option for multiple users. These plans have multiple devices (with multiple users) contracted to one person as the 'Customer'. This project investigates the surveillance risks (including call, message and location monitoring) that Family Plans present during ongoing relationships, in particular those at risk of domestic violence.

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)

The ability of small businesses (those with less than twenty employees) to adopt advanced digital services such as e-commerce solutions and cybersecurity services is vital for these businesses and for the economy. Recent surveys indicate that many are struggling to adapt to sudden changes due to Covid-19. This project aims to investigate how small retail businesses can enhance their growth and efficiency through the better use of advanced digital services from telecommunications providers.

University of Technology Sydney

The project will map out policy options for developing a complaint-handling framework for digital platforms, addressing a critical need for the satisfactory resolution of complaints from consumers. The features of effective and accountable internal dispute resolution schemes and the options for an external complaint-handling scheme will be assessed.

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)

This project is about ‘e-changers’, a significant and growing segment of the population who have chosen to move from the city to regional and coastal areas while maintaining their city jobs.

Through online ethnography with e-change households and interviews with other stakeholders, RMIT researchers sought to understand and document the telecommunications experiences and needs of this distinctive and growing segment of the Australian population.E-change report image.jpg

University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Regulating Consumer IoT Report Cover

The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to transform the way we live and work. But the growth of consumer IoT devices for the home, such as connected appliances and smart assistants, poses serious threats to consumers’ security and privacy.

This research identifies and analyses options for best practice regulation of IoT security and privacy. The report includes recommendations for reforming cyber security, consumer protection and data privacy law and regulation.

ACCESS ON DEMAND Grant Report image.png

 

Curtin University

Approaches to the accessibility of subscription versus free to access Australian video on demand platforms have been evaluated with research gathering new insights from consumers with disabilities.

Charles Sturt University

This project and its report outlines regional and rural consumer understandings of smart technologies and their applications in North West New South Wales, Australia. It identifies consumer engagement with digital infrastructure, the changing nature of development and planning in a digital context and the impact of smart services on social relations.

A group of older adults, dressed warmly and standing beside a lake, smiling into a camera for a selfieRoyal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)

This project focuses on giving a voice to how seniors perceive risk associated with ICT usage and ownership. 

Wamboin Communications Action Group Inc.

This project assisted regional and rural areas to effectively engage with their local communities and build a business case for the implementation of network capabilities to support their current and future needs. The project delivered a set of resources that can be applied across regional, rural and remote areas to help communities identify local requirements to achieve better Internet connectivity to support their economic and social growth.2 photos blended: one of a row of country letterboxes, the other a view over a valley, with a large eucalypt in the foreground

Hand holds up report cover that reads 'Telcos for all'Centre for Accessibility

In 2021, the Centre For Accessibility (CFA) Australia undertook research to improve the accessibility of websites and apps provided by the telecommunications sector.

Apps Can Trap image: Two cartoon children using Apps on phones with eyes looking over their shoulderChildren and Media Australia (Formerly ACCM)

Grant Round: 2020

Amount: $48,000

Deakin2019 IoT 01Deakin University

Monash Dark Ads Report cover

Monash University, Automated Society Working Group

Grant round: 2019

Amount: $49,579

People with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds participating in researchFirst Nations Media Australia

Grant round: 2019

Amount: $49,670

Man working at home with daughter on lapSACOSS (South Australian Council of Social Service)

Grant Round: 2019

Amount: $99,112

WEstjustice

Grant Round: 2019

Amount awarded: $50,000

Representation of consumers connected to each otherUTS Faculty of Law, UNE School of Law

Grant round: 2017-18

Amount: $50,603

overhead view of farmers sitting & standing, chatting. Screen in front of them.

James Cook University, Cairns Institute

Grant round: 2017-18

Amount: $36,000

Deakin Spyware Cover Image for web

Deakin University, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation

Grant round: 2017-18

Amount: $60,728

Thanks a Bundle Research Report Cover

University of Melbourne, Melbourne Social Equity Institute

Grant round: 2017-18

Amount: $69,428

MoneyMob Photograph MoneyMob Talkabout

Grant Round: 2019

Amount: $50,000

Concerned red-headed young woman looks at phone, she is backgrounded with streams of personal dataUTS School of Communication

Grant round: 2017-18

Amount: $55,302

 Image showing stylized graphics of electronic identity gathering methodsQUT School of Justice, Faculty of Law

Grant round: 2017-18

Amount: $53,247

Image of back of client speaking with staff member behind counter, under a red banner reading "Welcome to Hutt St Centre. A place of change, choice and opportunity"

Hutt St Centre

Grant round: 2017-18

Amount: $5,000