The Morrison Government is investing up to $30 million in health and medical research to help bring ground-breaking discoveries to fruition.
Through the Medical Research Future Fund, our government will open two new grant opportunities across key areas of medical research.
Firstly, a new grant opportunity will open targeted at Chronic Musculoskeletal Conditions in Children and Adolescents, with funding up to $20 million over four years from 2021-2022.
An estimated 880,000 musculoskeletal problems in children and adolescents are managed in primary care in Australia each year.
Musculoskeletal conditions that affect children and adolescents include juvenile idiopathic arthritis, juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus, back and hip conditions, muscular dystrophies and musculoskeletal pain.
The intended outcome of this grant opportunity is to improve the health care for children and adolescents with chronic musculoskeletal conditions by developing superior diagnostic approaches and by building evidence for best treatment approaches, including improved therapeutic regimes and validated models of care.
Secondly, a grant opportunity will open to help researchers develop and implement new approaches for improving patient care and health outcomes through better use of health information.
The Research Data Infrastructure grant opportunity provides up to $10 million for projects that bring together information held in different systems or platforms or that use novel methods like artificial intelligence to answer important health questions.
Better use of data will help to enable earlier diagnosis and increase the effectiveness of treatments and improve health outcomes.
It will also help reduce the probability of adverse reactions, better prevent diseases by identifying risk factors, and improve the monitoring of the effects of medical drugs.
These grants will continue to help our world-leading health and medical researchers build evidence to develop superior diagnostic approaches, and best treatment approaches, including improved therapeutic regimes and models of care.
Health and medical research remains our best hope to improve health outcomes for all Australians. It saves lives and improves lives.
The $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) supports Australia’s world class health and medical researchers by investing in innovative and game changing discoveries for the health of all Australians.
To apply for these grants please visit the GrantConnect website (https://www.grants.gov.au/).