Australian Academy of Science welcomes changes to NHMRC grant funding

May 25, 2017

The Australian Academy of Science welcomes the changes to the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) grant funding program announced today.

Professor Andrew Holmes, President of the Academy, is optimistic that the reforms will assist the NHMRC to fund and support health and medical research in a more targeted and equitable way in the future.

“The changes will provide better opportunities for outstanding early- and mid-career researchers, and will address concerns about the potential for loss of creativity in research. Previously, funding applications for new ideas that pushed the boundaries may have had less prospect of success,” Professor Holmes said.

“Of course adjustments will need to be made to the new system and we recognise some researchers will not be able to apply for the same number of grants as before.

“The new two-step review of applications will take pressure off both applicants and reviewers. Currently, applicants invest extraordinary amounts of time to apply for grants with a relative low chance of success. Time spent on unsuccessful grant applications is better spent on doing valuable research. These reforms free up researchers to get on with solving health and medical research challenges.

“I am encouraged that assessment of some grants under the new arrangements will be blinded to gender, age, career stage and institution.”

The reforms include replacing the longstanding Fellowship scheme and the Project and Program grants programs with three new streams, through which the majority of the NHMRC’s research budget will be allocated.

“Australia is a world leader in many areas of health and medical research, from the Nobel Prize winning discovery of the cause of gastric ulcers, to spray-on skin and the cervical cancer vaccine. The investment of taxpayers’ dollars in health and medical research by the NHMRC has had direct, beneficial outcomes for all Australians,” Professor Holmes said.

“As the size and complexity of research required to improve health outcomes increases, these changes will go some way to ensuring that the funding structures in place to support our highly trained and specialised medical researchers are as robust as possible.”


Media contact: Dan Wheelahan. dan.wheelahan@science.org.au ph: 0435 930 465

© 2024 Australian Academy of Science

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