Leadership INSIGHTS: Issue 03

This issue of Research Australia’s Leadership INSIGHTS series, introduced by CEO and Managing Director Nadia Levin, presents essays by three leaders from across the Research Australia alliance. Professor Pat McGorry AO, Executive Director of Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, argues that although Australian mental health research ranks fifth in the world for quality, governments have failed to implement evidence-based care such as early intervention for psychosis and home-based crisis care. He calls for vertical collaboration and clinical trial capacity to develop novel therapies, and notes that mental health receives around 7% of the research budget while representing at least 14% of the burden of disease. Michele Levine, Chief Executive Officer of Roy Morgan Research, describes how measuring active distrust, rather than treating trust as binary, revealed a social fracturing that helps explain panic-buying early in the COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of conspiracy theories. She recommends understanding the world-view of those who distrust, teaching critical appraisal skills and communicating transparently. Dr Andrew Weekes, Medical Director of GSK, gives a personal account of travelling to the United Kingdom during the pandemic to see his dying father, comparing UK and Australian public health measures and hotel quarantine, and observes that vaccines depend on public trust.