Health minister Greg Hunt has announced twelve new grant opportunities from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) valued at over $300 million.
Minister Hunt said the grants have the objective of improving outcomes across a range of areas, including dementia, aged care, cardiovascular disease and cancer. They also focus on translating new technologies such as stem cell therapies.
A total of $17.5 million is available for research into dementia and aged care. Dementia is the second leading cause of death in Australia and the number one cause of death for women.
The 2020 MRFF grant opportunity from the 'Dementia, Ageing and Aged Care Mission targets large scale, interdisciplinary research into dementia and aged care in four streams.
It includes $1 million for measures to assess dementia care at a local organisational level and improve its quality, $6 million for interventions for holistic and multidisciplinary care, $8 million for research to develop better diagnostic and prognostic tools for dementia and $2.5 million for research into effective infection control practices in aged care settings.
Minister Hunt said $25 million will be made available for the Clinician Researchers Initiative that aims to support research into health issues of significance to patients.
The research will have potential to improve outcomes for patients, address an area of high need, improve the safety, quality and effectiveness of health services, and/or improve the efficiency of health services.
Funding will be allocated across three streams - teams led by general practitioners (GPs), medical specialists, or allied health professionals.
Other grants opportunities are for Paediatric Cancer ($9.6 million), Improving Diagnosis in Cancers with Low Survival ($25 million), Rapid Applied Research Translation ($55 million), Early Stage Translation and Commercialisation Support ($79 million), Genomics Health Futures Mission ($45 million), Stem Cell Therapies Mission (Stem Cell Therapies Mission), Cardiovascular Health Mission ($20.3 million), Traumatic Brain Injury Mission ($4.3 million) and Indigenous Health Research Fund ($11.1 million).