2017 Advocacy Award Winner: Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation

The Advocacy award recognises and congratulates exceptional contributions made by
advocates who help raise community awareness and understanding about the importance of health and medical research.

Congratulations to 2017 Advocacy Award Winner: Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation

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2017 Data Innovation Award Winner: Professor Helmut Butzkueven

The Data Innovation Award award is presented to an individual or team that has developed the most innovative method of gathering, making available, processing or interpreting
data in a way that advances health and medical research.

Congratulations to Award Winner: Professor Helmut Butzkueven

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2017 Griffith University Discovery Award Winner: Dr Avnika Ruparelia

The Griffith University Discovery Award recognises an early career researcher This award recognises an early career researcher whose paper, patent or discovery has already demonstrated its importance or impact.

Congratulations to Award Winner –
Dr Avnika Ruparelia, Monash University

Dr Avnika Ruparelia is an early career researcher in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University, who has made outstanding contributions to the muscle disease field.

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2017 The Peter Wills Medal Winner: Professor Kim Mulholland

The Peter Wills Medal was created in honour of a great leader whose work led to the inception of Research Australia. The Peter Wills Medal is the flagship award and recognises someone who has made an outstanding, long-term contribution to building Australia’s international reputation in areas of health and medical research and fostering collaboration for better health.

Congratulations to Award Winner:
Professor Kim Mulholland

Professor Kim Mulholland’s 40 year career in global health has taken him from clinical
care of refugees in India and Sudan to public health and research in the field of child health. Continue reading “2017 The Peter Wills Medal Winner: Professor Kim Mulholland”

Why online health records help us all

Friday 1 September 2017

In an era of big data, the opportunity to harness the masses of information, including personal health records, through better collection, linkage and access, has the potential to transform our health systems and the way we deliver healthcare.

The more a doctor who is treating you knows about your medical history (and the quicker that history can be accessed) the better chance you have of it saving your life. If you are in an accident, unconscious and seriously hurt, then you really want those taking care of you to be able to access all your information about allergies, illnesses and medical history. It could make the difference between life and death.

You might assume doctors in various parts of the health system can already access your information, when the reality is that in most cases they cannot.The Australian health system is fragmented and information is not easily shared between the various GPs, medical specialists, private clinics and hospitals you visit over a lifetime. This means the data a medical professional looks at might not be complete or you may have to recall your own history repeatedly. This can lead to poor diagnoses and increased cost to the health system, with every repeat test and scan that might otherwise have been avoided.

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Federal Budget 2017-18 | First grants issued by MRFF

Response to Budget 2017

Research Australia welcomes first grants issued by Medical Research Future Fund

Government delivers on promise to establish flow of funding into health and medical research $20 billion capital target to be achieved in 2020-21

After a long-fought campaign to bring the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to reality, health and medical researchers have welcomed the first round of grants issued from the MRFF, as announced tonight in the Federal Budget. $65.9 million is available for 2016/17, with the detail of $25 million of this spending released tonight. Just as importantly, we now have a clear path to achieving the capital target of $20 billion, with the Budget papers revealing this target will be achieved in 2020-21.

Research Australia Director and CSL’s Senior Vice President of Research, Dr Andrew Nash, said the Budget announcement tonight confirmed the Government has begun to deliver on its promise to establish a consistent flow of funding for health and medical research.

“The grants announced tonight represent an important milestone in the establishment of this landmark source of funding for health and medical research.
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Federal Budget 2017-18 | Highlights

We have just got out of the Health Portfolio Federal Budget Lockup and here’s some early news on items affecting our sector.

We will provide you with more details around how the Federal Budget 2017-18 directly impacts health and medical research in the next few hours.

  • In 17-18, the total Health budget including (Aged Care & Sport) will increase 2.8% on last year to $94.2bn – that is 20% of total Commonwealth spend.
  • $5bn of that relates to HMR which includes:
    • $10M in preventive health research funded from MRFF
    • $78.8m for cancer research including $68m for a Proton Beam Facility in South Australia and $14.8m for childhood cancer.
  • Funding of $642.9 million will be made available in 2020 – 21, bringing total investment in HMR over the first 5 years of the MRFF to 1.4b, this is in addition to NHMRC funding.
  • $374.2m for national expansion of My Health Record to an opt-out system as agreed by COAG last year which will deliver enormous savings to the nation’s health bill over the next decade.
  • A compact with the pharmaceutical sector will mean lower cost medicines for consumers and in return allow more new drugs on the PBS and provide certainty and funding viability for the sector – congratulations to Medicines Australia

Continue reading “Federal Budget 2017-18 | Highlights”

Temporary Work (Skilled) visa subclass 457 scrapped

This week, the Prime Minister announced that the Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (subclass 457 visa) will be abolished and replaced with the completely new Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa in March 2018.

The TSS visa program will be comprised of a Short-Term stream of up to two years and a Medium-Term stream of up to four years and will support businesses ‘in addressing genuine skill shortages in their workforce and will contain a number of safeguards which prioritise Australian workers.’
Continue reading “Temporary Work (Skilled) visa subclass 457 scrapped”

Health and medical researchers welcome appointment of Hon Brad Hazzard MP to Health portfolio

30 January 2017

Australia’s peak body for health and medical research has welcomed the appointment of the
Hon Brad Hazzard MP as Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research.

“Bringing health and medical research back under one senior minister presents new opportunities to better integrate health and medical research with clinical care. This will mean better outcomes for patients and opportunities to achieve sustainable spending within the NSW health budget,” Research Australia CEO Nadia Levin said. Continue reading “Health and medical researchers welcome appointment of Hon Brad Hazzard MP to Health portfolio”