13 March 2017
Australia’s peak body for health and medical research has congratulated new incoming Western Australia Premier, Hon Mark McGowan MLA, especially the new Premier’s commitment to support WA medical researchers and innovators ‘like never before’.
“Researchers were rightly buoyed by election commitment Premier-Elect McGowan made in February this year to the establishment of a Future Health Research and Innovation (HRI) Fund. “A fund like this has amazing potential to create new jobs in research and make WA a world leader in medical innovation. Perhaps most importantly, it gives hope to the many Australians who look to health and medical researchers for answers to some of our most difficult health system challenges,” said Research Australia CEO, Nadia Levin.
The February election commitment to establish an HRI Fund underpins ‘long term funding’ for medical research and health innovation in WA. The existing WA Future Fund is to be repurposed and disbursements from the fund will deliver two separate streams of funding for medical research and medical innovation and commercialisation.
Ms Levin described this as, “A commitment absolutely welcomed by the medical research community and one which we will be following with close interest. We are also keenly interested to understand how the promised HRI Fund will work with the Commonwealth’s Medical Research Future Fund.”
Research Australia Chairman, Chris Chapman has written to Mr McGowan offering Research Australia’s support in establishing the new HRI Fund.
A copy of WA Labor’s election commitment entitled “Future Health Research and Innovation” is available here.
