Initially being a new discipline in the academic arena was seen as prohibitive to achieving grant success primarily because of weak track records . While considerable advances have been made in research productivity in Australia, nursing has been identified as remaining considerably behind some other disciplines in terms of research income and outputs . However, it is important to note the impressive performance of nursing as a discipline in the Excellence in Research Australia exercise . However, there are some encouraging recent examples of high outputs amongst nurses in Australia, as well as the UK, and Canada. More recently high teaching and administrative workloads are identified as a major barrier to the establishment of a successful research career