The COVID-19 pandemic and a waning resources boom have given urgency to a much-needed strategy to make the most of Australia’s medical research, a peak body says.
Federal health minister Greg Hunt has committed to a national health and medical research strategy, with a vision looking to 2040.
It follows more than 10 reviews in the past 15 years, flagging the need for a national health and medical research strategy and governing body.
Research Australia, which has pushed for the strategy, welcomed Hunt’s announcement made during an awards night hosted by the peak research body last Thursday.
Nadia Levin, the group’s chief executive, said there was fragmentation, duplication, and waste in Australia’s approach to medical research.
“This is very much looking to the future and saying ‘how can Australia be at its best and take its rightful place in a global sense?’ As well as taking care of its own population from a health and economic point of view,” Levin told The Mandarin.
She said that while Australia reached fourth among global rankings for research excellence, it lagged in the bottom few developed countries for commercialising its medical research.
“This isn’t just about commercialisation,” Levin said. “It’s about clinical outcomes as well as commercial outcomes.”
With Australia “at the end” of its resources boom, Levin believes the strategy will help align opportunities for economic growth and healthier populations.
“If you say ‘what as a nation have we got that we can build on?’, well, it is our excellence in medical research and our great health systems,” she said.
“It’s not a question of Australia all of a sudden manufacturing every medication that its population needs – no country in the world would be able to afford that – it’s a partnership between the public sector and the private sector.”
But, she acknowledges, coordinating research outcomes cannot only focus on efficiencies, given research and innovation require risk-taking and bold decisions.
“This isn’t about creating perfection and erredicating all waste. It is about maximizing what we have got,” Levin said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the priority of medical and health research in Australians’ minds – with a recent Roy Morgan poll showing 83.5% wanted funding increased, which is the highest since 2010.
Levin said the pandemic had opened a conversation to revisit existing challenges.
“Australians are appreciating the role health and medical research plays in our everyday lives,” she said. ”What COVID has done is really pushed it to the fore and given it a sense of urgency.”
READ MORE:
COVID forced Australia’s research cloud to grow-up fast: here’s what we’ve learned
Any feedback or news tips? Here’s where to contact the relevant team.