Investment in NHMRC and MRFF needs to be doubled, says peak body

Medical: To ensure Australia continues to respond to future health challenges such as chronic diseases, an ageing population and continuing COVID-19 impacts, we need to focus on maintaining the strength of our medical research sector and its highly-skilled workforce.

This election the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI) is calling on all parties and candidates to prioritise, fund and ensure the long-term security of medical research, and its highly skilled workforce.

With Australia’s medical research workforce facing a lack of long-term career sustainability, now is the time to act. Medical research is amongst the most unstable and precarious of career pathways, with many talented researchers finding it impossible to sustain a long-term career with such limited funding opportunities.  

AAMRI has outlined three critical election priorities; the need for a national strategy for health and medical research, a plan to support our research workforce, and imperatively, build Australian Government investment in key medical research funding programs to $3 billion per year by 2032.

AAMRI President, Professor Kathryn North AC, said there are opportunities to be more efficient and effective in how medical research is supported.

“Developing a new national health and medical research strategy will identify where our strengths and weaknesses lie and provide a plan to address these – benefitting our researchers and Australian communities.”

In the current research ecosystem, there is little evaluation as to whether Australia’s health and medical research efforts are in-line with its future health needs. There is also a lack of strategic coordination between leading government funding agencies regarding their respective investment responsibilities. There are many barriers along the research pipeline that unnecessarily slow translation of Australia’s amazing research discoveries into better health outcomes.

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The Australian Government is investing new funding in health and medical research through the MRFF, in addition to existing investments through the NHMRC and other agencies, and State Governments are independently contributing research funding in specific areas. AAMRI is urging the redesign of the fractured and inefficient structures put around this investment into a coordinated and sustainable funding system.

Australia currently spends $202 billion annually on healthcare but invests the equivalent of only 0.8% on medical research through the NHMRC and MRFF. There has also been no increase to NHMRC funding in the last decade, leading to a decline in funding for investigator-led research in real terms. Australia should address this by increasing the annual investment in medical research to a total of $3 billion annually – the equivalent of about 1.5% of Australia’s health expenditure – by 2032

According to AAMRI, people pursue a research career because of the opportunity to help others but attracting and retaining the best and brightest researchers means we need better opportunities for sustainable, rewarding research careers. Systemic issues causing career instability include declining success rates in major grant programs, sometimes to below 10%, insufficient progress in gender equity and diversity and the allure of better career options available overseas. The path for advancing a research career through the NHMRC route has become more difficult and unclear, with opportunities for women and early and mid-career researchers being particularly limited. Career mobility between research organisations, industry and healthcare also remains low in Australia, hindering the chance for a more vibrant career and training opportunities and a workforce with diverse skillsets.

“To keep Australia’s healthcare system strong, resilient and sustainable, we need continued strong support for Australian health and medical research, especially our talented workforce,” said Professor North.