2025–26 Pre-Budget Submission

This pre-budget submission for the 2025–26 Federal Budget makes recommendations under three priorities: smarter investment, a supported and diverse workforce, and a whole-of-systems approach to health and medical research and innovation with a focus on prevention. It notes that Australia’s gross expenditure on research and development (R&D) was 1.68% of GDP in 2021–22 against an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 2.718%, that Australian Government R&D spending fell from 0.67% of GDP in 2011–12 to about 0.49% in 2022–23, and that many of the 550-plus recommendations of 20 national reviews remain unimplemented. Investment recommendations include a measurable path to R&D investment of 3% of GDP, with government spending of at least 0.75% of GDP over the forward estimates; a pathway to fund the full cost of research; more discovery science funding through the NHMRC and Australian Research Council; at least $100 million a year in additional National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) funding; an Australian equivalent of the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA); and raising Medical Research Future Fund disbursements from $650 million towards the Future Fund’s $973 million determination. Workforce recommendations call for a national workforce plan prioritising clinician researchers, early and mid-career researchers (EMCRs), lived-experience researchers and women in leadership, and a national EMCR longitudinal survey. Systems recommendations cover funding and implementing the National Health and Medical Research Strategy, an expanded research and emergency funding role for the Australian Centre for Disease Control, and prioritising prevention, equity and data linkage.