Commonwealth Media | 23 October 2013
The government has announced more than $559 million in funding to Australian health and medical research through the National Health and Medical Research Council.
This is over $100m less than the previous government allocated in each of the past two years. The Gillard government spent $652m in last year’s October round and a record $674m in 2011, funding some 1140 grants each year.
However, NHMRC funding allocations are staggered through the year, with another substantial round expected in December.
This round’s funding will support 963 grants across three NHMRC research support schemes and five fellowship schemes.
It includes 652 project grants worth $423.5 million to support investigator-initiated research projects in clinical, biomedical, public health and health services research.
Six partnership projects worth $4.5 million will support researchers and policy makers to identify tailored, evidence-based solutions that improve health practice. Twelve European Union Collaborative Research Grants worth $4 million will also support Australian researchers working in multinational research collaborative projects.
In addition, 293 fellowships totalling $126.9 million will help to build a strong cohort of future researchers.
The government says that this investment is aimed at finding better treatments for many common diseases such as cancer, diabetes, asthma, arthritis and cardiovascular disease as well as finding new ways of tackling mental illness, dementia and indigenous health.
The government says it is committed to ensuring that Australia remains a world leader in medical research and is an essential part of its plan to “build a more diverse, world-class five pillar economy.”
Before the election, the Coalition guaranteed not to cut medical research funding. However, not only do this main round fall well short of allocations in recent years, medical research has been included in the scope of the government’s recently announced Commission of Audit.
Brendan Crabb, the president of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes and head of the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, has warned that falling success rates on medical research grants will eventually reach “breaking point” and start seriously discouraging young researchers from sticking with their careers. The tougher it appears to win funding, the harder it will be to attract and retain people, he said . The number of applications grew to over 5000 in a dropping funding environment, the success rate fell to just 19%, down from 22.5% last year.
See what happens in December.
- NHMRC Funding
