Over the years, numerous external research grants have been awarded to support various environmental and historical research projects. In 1976, a University Grants Commission grant of NZ$1250 funded the vegetation history of northeast South Island, New Zealand. From 1979 to 1981, the Australian Research Grants Scheme (ARGS) provided $23,960 for studying Quaternary environments in the Goulburn area, NSW, and from 1981 to 1983, another ARGS grant of $26,214 was secured for researching Holocene environments on Barrington Tops, NSW. In 1984, the British Ecological Society awarded a small projects grant of $450 for vegetation dynamics in Co. Sligo, Eire. Further funding from ARGS from 1986 to 1988 amounted to $22,300 for rainforest dynamics in northeastern NSW. “Australian Geographic” supported research in arid zone palaeoenvironments from stick-nest rat middens with a $1000 grant in 1989, and the same year, combined support from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Australian-European Award Scheme totaled $133,300 for investigating human impact on the environment of southern Australia.
Significant grants continued in the 1990s, with the ARC providing $36,750 in 1991-1992 for environmental change and human impact on New Caledonia, and $30,250 in 1992-1993 for AMS dating of samples from Cuddie Springs. The ARC awarded $212,900 from 1993-1995 for human impact in eastern Australia, and National Geographic contributed US$5570 in 1993 for field expenses at Cuddie Springs. In 1993, the Toyota Foundation granted US$35,000 for research on Fais, Micronesia. Several AINSE grants in the early 1990s supported dating projects, including $15,600 for stick-nest rat middens from central Australia and $16,076 for training Aboriginal people for fieldwork at Cuddie Springs.
Major infrastructure grants from the ARC were awarded throughout the mid-1990s, including $265,000 in 1994 and 1995 for AMS dating facilities, and $300,000 in 1996 and 1997 for further AMS dating research. Collaborative international projects also received funding, such as NZ$125,000 from the Marsden Fund, New Zealand, in 1997 for research on the Solomon Islands. In 1998, the ARC Large Grant of $148,000 was awarded for environmental history research at the Yallalie meteor impact structure in SW Australia.
The late 1990s and early 2000s saw continued ARC funding, including a $1,000,000 RIEF grant in 1999 for a new AMS dating facility, and a $380,000 Discovery Grant in 2002 for high-resolution records of climate change in Australia. The Marsden Fund granted NZ$575,000 in 2003 for geoarchaeology in the Solomon Islands, and in 2004, an ARC Discovery Grant of $107,500 funded research on human impact and environmental change in the Lower Yangtze Delta, China. From 2006 onwards, substantial ARC Linkage Grants were awarded, including $379,276 for Aboriginal landscape transformations in south-west Australia and $480,000 in 2013 for dating Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley region, WA. These grants have collectively supported extensive research in environmental change, human impact, and historical ecology across various regions globally.