Strategic and international horizons

Antimicrobial resistance

Investment in this global challenge, consistent with Australia’s First National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy (2015–2019), with a focus on research to bring to market point-of-care solutions.

International collaborative research

Create a reserve for rapid funding of international collaborative work in priority areas of health and medical research, capable of leveraging multiple agency, discipline, national or industry investment.

Disruptive technology

Assess the impact of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, wearables, genomic engineering and emerging markets on health service delivery and health training requirements.

Data and infrastructure

Clinical quality registries

Provide start-up investment in disease or therapy-focussed clinical registries supported by a national framework to maximise interoperability and value of research to clinical practice.

National data management study

Study, in collaboration with key agencies, the requirements for infrastructure enhancement that expands the use of secure, digitised (My Health Record) and linked health and social data and inter-agency collaborative research.

MRFF infrastructure and evaluation

Establish:

(1)  a consumer-driven health and medical research agenda;

(2)  a method to guide future MRFF priorities; and

(3)  the means to measure and report on economic returns from investments.

Communicable disease control

Enhance and coordinate research on national surveillance of and response to current and emerging infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance.

Health services and systems                              

National Institute of Research

In partnership with the states and territories, determine the feasibility of establishing a national institute focused on health services, and public and preventive health research to facilitate evidence-based and cost-effective healthcare.

Building evidence in primary care

Work alongside the Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce to identify interventions with limited supporting evidence that are amenable to randomised control trial investigations, and engage the existing workforce to build capacity.

Behavioural economics application

Support development of research in applied behavioural economics that concentrates on public and preventive health, with an emphasis on early intervention in mental health, healthy eating and physical activity.

Drug effectiveness and repurposing

Invest in post-clinical effectiveness studies of drugs and other health interventions and support pre-clinical proposals that identify new uses for existing drugs.

Capacity and collaboration

National infrastructure sharing scheme

Develop and evaluate a national scheme that enables researchers to locate and access existing high cost infrastructure to maximise hardware use and foster research collaboration.

Industry exchange fellowships

Connect industry and academia via PhD and postdoctoral fellowships to enable and encourage talent exchange, with the aim of stimulating entrepreneurial and translation capabilities.

Clinical researcher fellowships

Expand the scope and scale of the existing NHMRC Practitioner Fellowships Scheme to increase engagement of research-focussed clinicians in problem-solving and the translation of research into clinical practice.

Trials and translation                                                                             

Clinical trial network

Provide infrastructure support for existing and new national clinical trial networks to enhance innovation, collaboration, clinical research capacity and patient participation.

Public good demonstration trials

Invest in extension of clinical trials of proven therapies with limited opportunity for further commercial sponsorship to at-risk groups including adolescents and young adults, culturally diverse groups, and people with complex co‑morbidities.

Targeted translation topics

Work with the NHMRC-accredited Advanced Health Research and Translation Centres to deliver research agendas in primary care, acute and sub-acute settings relating to:

·         clinical pathways and care transition;

·         clinical variation;

·         co-morbidity; and

·         health inequities in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and other vulnerable populations.

Commercialisation                                                                                                                                

Research incubator hubs

Create and evaluate virtual or actual health research incubator hubs that stimulate partnerships across a range of academic, clinician and industry stakeholders to generate early-stage research ideas for diagnostics, devices and molecular therapeutics.

Biomedical translation

Through the Biomedical Translation Fund, seek out matched private capital to invest via licensed fund managers in pre-clinical to early clinical translation of research of commercial value.