NHMRC grants stick to the big smoke

The latest round of NHMRC funding grants shows Queensland's boast of being the most decentralised state does not extend to medical research.

Two institutions, both in Brisbane, absorbed 84 per cent of the $21.9 million awarded to Queensland researchers in the most recent NHMRC project grants round. The University of Queensland topped the list with $12.9 million and the Queensland Institute for Medical Research slotted in at number two with $5.5 million.

Analysed on a geographic basis, the distribution of funding was lopsided in favour of capital city versus regional recipients.

Researchers outside the capital city complex in the State's extreme south-east corner managed to attract a minuscule 2.5 per cent of the funding round.

The sole regionally-based grant was $555,000, offered to researchers at James Cook University in Townsville to trial tobacco control intervention strategies in remote communities.

For principal investigator Prof Robyn McDermott, it will be the fifth NHMRC grant she has collected since 1998.

Her record is all the more impressive because her field is public health, an area which the NHMRC has previously been accused of neglecting in favour of biomedical projects.

McDermott said she did not believe the grant system discriminated against smaller regional centres. However, she conceded the application process was neither simple nor short, and said the peer review process could be "disheartening" for applicants who were not prepared for candid comments.

Other regional medical researchers said the disparity was a matter of concern.

Pharmacologist Alan Nimmo, also of JCU, said the quality of regional research was not widely appreciated.

He cited tenfold increases in support for "exactly the same type of research project" when an application was submitted by a major urban centre versus a regional institute.

Physical isolation which legislated against regional researchers meeting and mixing with their peers at conventions and other events was another drawback, he said.

He suggested it could be a factor working against regional researchers during the peer review process for project applications.

The superior infrastructure and higher concentration of biomed workers in the Brisbane-Gold Coast conurbation are obvious reasons for their higher percentage of successful applications.

Dr Peter Riddles, deputy CEO of IMBcom, the commercialisation arm of UQ affiliate the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, noted that outlying areas usually did not have the biomedical resources to support the types of research that the targeted by the NHMRC.

Brisbane, for example, would have a preponderance of the State's teaching hospitals and would offer easier access to clinical resources.

Minister for Innovation and Information Economy Paul Lucas noted that JCU now had a medical school, and suggested the ongoing establishment of such facilities in regional centres would ease the current disparity.

Queensland's own programs, such as the Smart State Research Fund, were "merit-based and draw no distinctions based on geography," he said.