Research Australia Response to the Consultation on Improving Alignment and Coordination Between the Medical Research Future Fund and NHMRC’s Medical Research Endowment Account

This submission responds to the Department of Health’s 2023 consultation on improving strategic alignment and coordination between the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Medical Research Endowment Account (MREA), answering the discussion paper’s guiding questions in survey responses of up to 400 words. Research Australia maintains that the two funds lack distinct identities, causing confusion among researchers, duplication, very low success rates (reportedly under 5% for 2022 MRFF early- and mid-career fellowships) and hidden underfunding, and that research stalls between grants. It prefers Model 2, which keeps two separate funding streams with distinct roles under unified governance and administration, over a merged single grant program. It asks that the MRFF remain priority-driven and focused on innovation and commercialisation, retaining its expertise and advisory input from industry, finance and the health system, and that the NHMRC receive a planned transition and culture change, with an Innovation Committee or new skills on its Investment Committee. It notes that discovery research fell from 25% of university research expenditure in 2010 to 19.4% in 2020, and from $2.8 billion to $2.5 billion between 2018 and 2020. It recommends the reform to sit within a National Health and Medical Research Strategy informed by a national funding stocktake and a workforce plan for early and mid-career researchers, with input from multiple portfolios, states, philanthropy and industry.