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SUBMISSION
AUSTRALIA’S SCIENCE AND RESEARCH
PRIORITIES: CONVERSATION STARTER
Response to consultation
30 March 2022
Contact:
Dr Saraid Billiards
Chief Executive Officer
Association of Australian
Medical Research Institutes
PO Box 2097
Royal Melbourne Hospital VIC 3050 enquiries@aamri.org.au www.aamri.org.au
ABN 12 144 783 728
Contents
About AAMRI .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Overall response ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Response to Consultation Questions ...................................................................................................... 5
What are Australia’s greatest challenges that science could help to address?.................................. 5
What are Australia’s greatest opportunities we should seize? .......................................................... 5
What are Australia’s strengths we should maintain or build? ........................................................... 6
About AAMRI
The Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI) is the peak body representing medical research institutes (MRIs) across Australia1. Our 58 member organisations have over 20,000 staff and research students, are internationally recognised and undertake half of all government funded health and medical research in Australia. Our members include independent MRIs as well as university- and hospital-based institutes with a central focus on health and medical research. Their combined revenue exceeds $2.4 billion per annum and they received over $693 million in competitive grant funding in 2020. With over 1100 active clinical trials and over 100 new patents awarded each year, medical research institutes have a firm focus on improving health outcomes and delivering great commercial returns for Australia. Together, they aim to drive innovation in healthcare through research to improve the lives and livelihoods of people in Australia, and worldwide.
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For further information about AAMRI and its members, please visit https://aamri.org.au
Overall response
The Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI) welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the consultation process on revitalising Australia’s Science and Research Priorities
(the priorities) and the National Science Statement (the statement). We support the ongoing investment in health to support leading edge research and innovation.
AAMRI recommends that revitalisation of the science and research priorities include specific actions to address the following points:
• the critical need to keep health and medical research as a priority area to ensure the health
and wellbeing of Australians
• identify opportunities, including direct funding, to cover the ‘true’ costs of research to
enable the research sector to continue to deliver high-quality, innovative and impactful
research
• grow and develop the workforce needed to deliver on the full health and economic benefits
of the health and medical research sector
• re-invigorate support to basic research as a key source of home-grown intellectual property
driving the growth of the Biomedical industry sector in Australia
• enhance opportunities for early-stage research commercialisation
• continue to support streamlining and improved coordination of research across Australia
around key priority areas including clinical trials
• ensure consumer and community engagement is front of mind when updating the priorities.
Response to Consultation Questions
What are Australia’s greatest challenges that science could help to address?
As the peak body representing medical research institutes (MRIs) across Australia, the Association of
Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI) will focus on the ongoing need to have Health and
Research as a priority.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the strength of Australia’s health and medical research sector as well as its crucial importance to the nation’s future wellbeing. It is no accident that Australia has been able to mount such a strong response during the pandemic, thanks to decades of strong investment that have built up our medical research capability.
Health and medical research is critical to advancing knowledge and improving patient care thus contributing to better health outcomes. While focus areas outlined under the Health priority in the
2015 Science and Research Priorities are still relevant today additional considerations could be given to:
• the need for better models of health care and services that improve outcomes for ageing
populations
• improved prediction, identification, tracking, prevention and management of emerging local
and regional health threats and for chronic diseases
• better health outcomes for Indigenous people
• utlising big data to inform improvements in health care
• reducing the rising costs of health care through research
• advancing our onshore research, manufacturing, and delivery if advanced therapy capability,
e.g drug and vaccine development through to innovative devices and diagnostics
• utilising emerging health technologies effectively.
What are Australia’s greatest opportunities we should seize?
Australia’s health and medical research sector is world leading. In particular, the Medical Research
Institute (MRI) sector, plays a key role in the collective development of a vibrant health and medical research system. As organisations whose mission is solely focussed on delivering improved health outcomes through research, MRIs provide strong collaborative links between all parts of the health and medical research pipeline, including researchers and academics, universities, health care providers, clinician researchers, industry and the broader community.
MRIs have the capacity to greatly enhance Australia’s current health and medical research capabilities, including attracting industry and investment and maximising health and economic outcomes from research. MRIs are well placed to lead collaborations, build and develop the research workforce and expand and enable research translation activities.
With a combination of a more defined mission and a smaller decision-making structure, MRIs are able to be nimbler and more streamlined in their approach to research. Continuing to build on the strengths of the MRI sector to deliver against a priority of health and identified research challenges is critical to the successful implementation of the next iteration of the Science and Research
Priorities.
What are Australia’s strengths we should maintain or build?
MRIs will play an important role in contributing to the recovery Australia’s economy following the
COVID-19 pandemic, but there are significant challenges to delivering the full potential health and economic benefits, which will require a long-term approach to overcome. A well supported and appropriately skilled workforce, including a workforce within the hospitals and heath support services that is research active and research literate, is the key to delivering the benefits of health and medical research and positioning the sector for growth.
AAMRI’s members have raised major concerns regarding their ability to attract and retain the most highly skilled members of the health and medical research workforce. Existing structural weaknesses have been exacerbated and new barriers and challenges have appeared because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which threaten the future capacity and sustainability of the health and medical research workforce.
Issues such as gender inequity, limitations to developing cross-sector skills and inflexible career paths, the lack of ‘protected’ research time for clinician researchers, the indirect costs of research being significantly underfunded, including staffing costs, and the individualistic and short-term nature of funding for research positions appear to be common across the sector. Reports of the
‘flight’ of early-career, mid-career and highly skilled researchers from Australia are of sufficient concern to warrant action.
Does Australia have the capability and capacity needed to address these challenges, opportunities and strengths? If not, how could we build this?
MRIs will play an important role in contributing to the recovery Australia’s economy following the
COVID-19 pandemic, but there are significant challenges to delivering the full potential health and economic benefits, which will require a long-term approach to overcome. A well supported and appropriately skilled workforce, including a workforce within the hospitals and heath support services that is research active and research literate, is the key to delivering the benefits of health and medical research and positioning the sector for growth.
AAMRI’s members have raised major concerns regarding their ability to attract and retain the most highly skilled members of the health and medical research workforce. Existing structural weaknesses have been exacerbated and new barriers and challenges have appeared because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which threaten the future capacity and sustainability of the health and medical research workforce.
Issues such as gender inequity, limitations to developing cross-sector skills and inflexible career paths, the lack of ‘protected’ research time for clinician researchers, the indirect costs of research being significantly underfunded, including staffing costs, and the individualistic and short-term nature of funding for research positions appear to be common across the sector. Reports of the
‘flight’ of early-career, mid-career and highly skilled researchers from Australia are of sufficient concern to warrant action.
The revitalisation of the Science and Research Priorities should consider the need, or support the development of, a national health and medical research strategy to identify Australia’s strategic advantages, as well as the areas where systemic barriers need to be broken down.