NEWS & EVENTS

Federal Budget commits to long-term funding for Australian research translation centres

18 April 2019

The 2019/20 budget announcement by Treasurer The Hon. Josh Frydenberg included $218 million in funding for Rapid Applied Research Translation over 10 years. This funding and long-term investment represents a major endorsement of the seven Advanced Health Research and Translation Centres and two Centres for Innovation in Regional Health, that have formed the Australian Health Research Alliance (AHRA). It will support collaboration and ongoing efforts to enhance integration across healthcare, research and education. Brisbane Diamantina Health Partners Executive, Ms Areti Gavrilidis said: “BDHP welcomes the commitment of the Federal government to continue funding the centres along with the strengthened commitment towards health and medical research and translation as announced in the federal budget. “This commitment to ongoing funding for health and medical research in Australia will see organisations continue to collaborate to deliver better health outcomes and patient care for all Australians.” The 10-year investment plan for the Medical Research Future Fund outlines different projects set to receive funding, which are broken down into four areas: patients, researchers, missions and translation. A summary of the funding is included below, with full details available at www.budget.gov.au

• Patients (total $1.3B)
  • Emerging Priorities and Consumer Driven Research – $633M
  • Clinical Trials for Rare Cancers, Rare Diseases and Unmet Needs – $614M
  • Global Health – tackling Antimicrobial Resistance and Drug Resistant Tuberculosis – $28M
• Researchers (total $793M)
  • Frontier Health and Medical Research – $570M
  • Industry Researcher Exchange and Training – $32M
  • Clinical Researchers – $191M
• Missions (total $1.4B)
  • Australian Brain Cancer Mission – $49M
  • Million Minds Mental Health Research Mission – $125M
  • Genomics Health Futures Mission – $500M
  • Ageing, Aged Care and Dementia Mission – $168M
  • Indigenous Health Futures – $148M
  • Stem Cell Mission – $150M
  • Cardiovascular Mission – $200M
  • Traumatic Brain Injury Mission – $45M
• Translation (total $1.5B)
  • Preventative and Public Health Research – $261M
  • Primary Health Care Research – $45M
  • Rapid Applied Research Translation Centre – $218M
  • Medical Research Commercialisation – $311M
  • National Critical Infrastructure – $605M
  • Data Infrastructure, registries, biobanks, linkage platforms – $80M

“This new and extended funding will enable long-term research projects to be planned to deliver substantial health benefits for all Australians,” said Areti Gavrilidis.