The Australian Government funds the Marine National Facility (MNF) to provide a blue-water research capability to the Australian research community and their international collaborators. The research delivered from MNF voyages provides critical information to directly support government, industry and other stakeholders in making evidence-based decisions to ensure the long-term viability and prosperity of the Australian marine environment and industries. The MNF is committed to inspiring future generations of marine researchers and building a pipeline of STEM talent to support future industries and the management of Australia’s marine estate. In 2019, we launched the Indigenous Time at Sea Scholarship. The program acknowledges the critical need to close the gap in education outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, especially within the sphere of STEM. The Indigenous Time at Sea Scholarship provides these students the opportunity to join research voyages on RV Investigator where they are embedded as part of the research team and exposed to leading researchers and cutting-edge research techniques. This program complements the MNF’s strategy to foster the integration of traditional knowledge systems into the project design of proposals for sea-time on the facility. We will discuss the program and outcomes from the first Indigenous Time at Sea Scholarship voyage, an 11-day voyage from Darwin to Fremantle in December 2019/January 2020.