Content
CEO newsletter - December 2008
On this page
- » Outcomes of the 2008 Funding Round and Comments on 2009 Round
- » 2008 Funding round
- » 2009 Funding round
Download CEO's newsletter
Outcomes of the 2008 Funding Round and Comments on 2009 Round.
NHMRC takes this opportunity to thak sincerely the thousands of Australian and international researchers who have helped us with peer review this year. We thank too, the members of the Australian Community who have been independent observers on our peer review panels in 2008.
This newsletter is to give readers information on the outcomes of our major application rounds in 2008, and to provide news on the 2009 funding round. Comments and feedback are welcome, to nhmrc@nhmrc.gov.au.
2008 FUNDING ROUND
NHMRC Project grants were announced on 16 October 2008 by the Minister for Health and Ageing, The Hon. Nicola Roxon MP. As outlined in my last CEO newsletter, there were 688 successful grants.
Some analysis of this is provided in the accompanying tables.
Summary of Disease/Health Priorities from 2009 Project Grants
Disease/Issue |
No of Grants |
Funding |
|---|---|---|
Asthma |
18 |
$10,628,908 |
Arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions |
17 |
$9,955,963 |
Cancer |
122 |
$63,192,038 |
Cardiovascular Disease |
95 |
$46,732,140 |
Diabetes |
30 |
$16,011,450 |
Mental Health |
60 |
$29,426,861 |
Injury |
33 |
$20,420,168 |
Dementia |
18 |
$9,258,700 |
Indigenous Health |
21 |
$15,719,573 |
Obesity |
33 |
$18,040,675 |
Prevention |
69 |
$40,514,285 |
Other |
172 |
$75,971,885 |
Total |
688 |
$355,872,646 |
Top 20 Administering Institutions for New Project Grants Awarded in 2009
No. |
Institution |
Number of New Grants |
Total Commitments |
|---|---|---|---|
1 |
University of Sydney |
94 |
$50,393,408 |
2 |
University of Melbourne |
94 |
$48,481,123 |
3 |
Monash University |
62 |
$32,043,830 |
4 |
University of Queensland |
61 |
$31,463,019 |
5 |
University of New South Wales |
51 |
$23,252,485 |
6 |
University of Adelaide |
46 |
$22,523,853 |
7 |
University of Western Australia |
38 |
$19,786,975 |
8 |
University of Newcastle |
18 |
$14,628,576 |
9 |
Queensland Institute of Medical Research |
18 |
$10,551,513 |
10 |
Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute |
22 |
$9,452,613 |
11 |
Menzies School of Health Research |
10 |
$7,379,825 |
12 |
Flinders University |
13 |
$6,969,375 |
13 |
Australian National University |
12 |
$6,174,700 |
14 |
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute |
13 |
$5,701,063 |
15 |
St. Vincent's Institute of Medical Research |
9 |
$5,598,775 |
16 |
Garvan Institute of Medical Research |
10 |
$5,338,000 |
17 |
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute |
11 |
$4,890,063 |
18 |
Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute |
8 |
$4,430,125 |
19 |
Macfarlane Burnet Institute |
9 |
$4,096,949 |
20 |
Queensland University of Technology |
9 |
$3,811,070 |
Total top 20 |
608 |
$316,967,337 |
|
Total of All Project Grants |
688 |
$355,872,646 |
|
It is particularly pleasing that there are 54 New Investigator Grants starting in 2009. These grants are for researchers seeking their first project grant funding from NHMRC. Over the last three years a total of 170 people have been able to achieve their first ever NHMRC project grant though this scheme (or 9.3% of the 1833 project grants awarded over that period).
This year, NHMRC received 191 applications for appointment as NHMRC Research Fellows, either for the first time or for reappointment. 80 appointments were announced on 10 November 2008, a 42% success rate. NHMRC congratulates these outstanding researchers who were awarded a Fellowship to work fulltime as researchers over 5 years. The names of the new Fellows and the State breakdown is available on our website at » http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/fellows/funded/outcomes/career/_files/2009_research_fellowships.pdf 
From 407 applications for Career Development Awards, 56 appointments were made, including 45 at level 1, and 11 at level 2. In all, there were 36 biomedical CDA appointments (13% success rate), 7 in Clinical CDAs category (18% success rate), 11 in the population health category (16 % success rate) and 2 Industry CDAs (18% success rate).
For Training awards, 42 new awards have been recommended for Australian Ppostdoctoral Fellows to study overseas for two years, followed by two years back in Australia, through the CJ Martin, Neil Hamilton Fairley and Sydney Sax Awards. For awards to be held in Australia, there were 33 in the biomedical category (21% success rate), 22 in the clinical categories (46% success rate) and 17 in the population health category (33% success rate).
[top]
2009 FUNDING ROUND
Project grants
NHMRC opened its application process on 8th December. We expect more than 3000 applications in 2009, and to be able to make around the same number of awards as in 2008.
NHMRC Academy
NHMRC will appoint around 25 members to a new NHMRC Academy to assist us with the establishment of the Grant Review Panels, and the assignment of applications to spokespersons and to external assessors. This will replace the process previously overseen by the Selectors.
Peer Reviewers
NHMRC is establishing an improved database for peer reviewers and we thank the thousands of people who have to date returned the electronic form. If you have not yet done so, perhaps because you assumed that we have your details, please fill out and return the new form. Our old database is bedevilled by out of date software, and cannot be made compatible with the other software that we use to handle the annual peer review processes.
Lodgement of Grant Applications
Informed Filler will remain the software used for project grants this year, but during 2009 we hope to complete development and beta-testing of the new electronic submission and handling software. At this stage, we anticipate beta-testing this software on this year’s Development Grant round. The software under development is an established brand, used already by some other Commonwealth Granting Agencies. A key feature will be that researchers will establish a CV which will be held on our central server, that you can update any time, and which can be automatically inserted into any NHMRC grant application.
NHMRC Research Priority Areas
There is just one priority area for 2009; Indigenous health. Peer review of applications for funding to improve Indigenous health will continue to include input from Indigenous Health Review Panels.
There are also be special calls for applications in other areas. This includes for those areas identified in our Strategic Plan (2007-2009) in which NHMRC wishes to build our national research capacity. The second will be for areas where NHMRC has been provided with additional funds by other bodies, which will include some new organisations in 2009.
We will also continue to assist the Cancer Councils, Cancer Australia, and the National Heart Foundation with peer review, assisted by the new NHMRC Academy members.
Enabling Grants
NHMRC will finalise its review of this scheme in early 2009, with a small team undertaking a review of each current grant. NHMRC currently supports 35 facilities for health and medical research, from non-human primate colonies to biobanks, from a Clinical Trials Registry to Australian Zebrafish Phenomics Facility. To date, these have been established through annual funding rounds. However, it is already clear that some of these facilities are so valuable, and so unique, that future competitive rounds (eg for non-human primate facilities) does not make sense. It seems likely that some more enduring NHMRC support may be necessary for some, though on the basis of peer review and time related funding. Since the Enabling Grants scheme was introduced by NHMRC (in 2002) the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS) has also been instigated and it will be important for NHMRC and NCRIS Board to discuss support for facilities that are for the health and medical research sector.
Capacity Building Grants
NHMRC’s Capacity Building Grants in Population Health Research, and in Health Services Research, will be modified a little in 2009 funding round to provide support for Centres of Research Excellence in Population Health and in Health Services Research. The overall aim of these centres will remain building research capacity and excellence in these two research areas crucial to the improvement of the health of Australian and further flexibility on proposed use of the Grant. The change in name reflects that research quality in these areas is excellent and of international standards.
Centres of Clinical Research Excellence and Practitioner Fellowships
NHMRC is proud of the success of both these schemes and there will be another round of applications for both in 2009. As the health system itself is undergoing reform scrutiny at this time, NHMRC believes that its Centres of Clinical Research Excellence can play important leadership, research translation and knowledge exchange roles.
Partnerships for Better Health
This new initiative of NHMRC is aimed at improving applied research and the transfer and exchange of knowledge gained from research. As research translation moves more to the centre stage (e.g. see Nature June 12, 2008), NHMRC opened submissions for partnership project grants in July 2008, with a closing date of 19 December 2008.
Research Committee will consider advice from an international panel on the establishment of a number of Partnership Centres of Research Excellence in Knowledge Exchange in 2009, with a discussion paper expected to be released in the first half of 2009.
Finally, all of us here at NHMRC wish you all the best for Christmas and the festive season, and for the New Year.
Professor Warwick Anderson AO
Chief Executive Officer
National Health and Medical Research Council
[top]
Help
|
|
Linked documents tagged with the PDF icon Note: Attempting to open large PDF files within the browser window may lead to system problems. For more information see Troubleshooting and access of large pdf documents. |
[top]