Health, medical and innovation funding announced

The federal government was apparently in a generous mood over the weekend, announcing close to $700 million in funding for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and CSIRO.

On Saturday, the government committed more than $483 million to support 601 grants across four NHMRC funding schemes. The funds will be shared by more than 1900 researchers covering a wide range of projects, including:

• understanding brain plasticity;
• creating the world’s first molecular blueprint of exercise;
• assessing whether stressful life events are associated with Graves’ disease;
• developing new treatment approaches to chronic pain;
• identifying a new approach for protecting against stomach cancer by preventing inflammation;
• improving the treatment of viral infections in transplant recipients.

“They include 60 fellowships for our future research leaders, laboratory studies of the origins of disease and clinical trials of new therapies,” said NHMRC CEO Professor Anne Kelso.

“NHMRC is also funding a $5 million Partnership Centre in Health System Sustainability, which will support the implementation of research-informed improvements in healthcare system performance.”

Across all schemes, the funded rate was 15.6%. For the largest scheme, supporting 539 project grants, 15.2% of applications were funded — up 1.5% from 2015.

The full list of grants for 2016 can be found on the NHMRC website.

This was followed on Sunday by the launch of the CSIRO Innovation Fund, established as part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda. It will comprise $70 million in government funding, $30 million revenue from CSIRO’s WLAN program and additional private sector investment, with a target total value of $200 million over 10 years.

The fund will support co-investment in new spin-out and start-up companies, as well as SMEs engaged in the translation of research generated in the publicly funded research sector. It will be managed by an experienced team led by veteran venture capitalist Bill Bartee, who was appointed following an extensive recruitment process.

“To ensure the best ideas have the greatest impact, we will back the most ambitious entrepreneurs who want to build important, enduring companies,” said Bartee.

“The Innovation Fund provides a fantastic opportunity to help ideas coming from accelerators and elsewhere realise their potential in the commercial market.”

For more information on the fund, visit www.csiro.au/Innovation-fund.

Pictured: Bill Bartee.