Poor Australian success rates blamed on low funding, not bad bids

“Unsuccessful grant applications are part of this process, and not all should be considered time wasted,” With with many smaller funding bodies, the only feedback is 'application unsuccessful', and in these cases I really do think it is time wasted. If these funding bodies are distributing funds given by the public, then much more transparency is needed. One assumes there has been some element of peer review, and as such, it would take about a minute for the reviewer to complete a proforma 'tick box' indicating whether the grant was a near miss or had no hope. That minute really would be a good use of time.