INSPIRE – Issue 39
This edition of INSPIRE spotlights the economic and social case for Australia’s health and medical research and innovation sector, examining the jobs, industries and healthcare savings this investment delivers. As calls for smarter investment grow louder, we explore both the returns this sector generates and the case for treating research as economic infrastructure rather than a discretionary line item.
We highlight the tangible returns this investment delivers, from a telehealth nutrition program in rural NSW that turns into wages that stay in the towns that need them, to a shared biomanufacturing facility in Queensland turning a $7.7 million grant into 72 high-value local jobs, to a precision medicine partnership in NSW multiplying $45 million in government funding tenfold in world-leading care for children with cancer and rare disease.
Other contributors ask us to look at what research prevents, and what quietly shapes policy without ever making headlines: the case for greater investment in prevention, the outsized influence of health services research on government policy, and the cost of missing national elimination targets for hepatitis. At the same time, we consider how health economics and everyday generosity both sustain this system.
In The Last Word, Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah reflects on how the right investment and policy settings could make health and medical research one of Australia’s great growth industries.
We are pleased to welcome the Lions Eye Institute to the Research Australia Alliance and thank them for their valued contributions to this edition. We are also grateful to The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, a Centre of Sax Institute, Avant Foundation, Hepatitis Australia, Health Services Research Association of Australia & New Zealand, Hunter Medical Research Institute, Lifeblood, Luminesce Alliance, Macquarie University, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Translational Research Institute and The University of Melbourne for their important insights and stories.
We hope this edition of INSPIRE encourages you to consider what is possible when research is backed with the investment and confidence it deserves. Enjoy reading!
The next edition is The Best of Us: The People Behind the Progress.