The goal of the Partnership Centres initiative is to bring teams of researchers and decision-makers together to create better health services and health by collaborative work on priority themes determined by the needs of the health and health care systems.
Each Partnership Centre will have national reach and be supported jointly by NHMRC and organisations with an interest in using research to advance their mission. The theme for each Centre – negotiated by the Knowledge Broker between these co-funding partners – will be forward-looking, a priority for Australia’s health and health care systems over the next decade, and congruent with NHMRCs 2010-2012 Strategic Plan.
Within a Partnership Centre there are two levels of partnership:
- The funding partners; and
- The investigator partners who form a collaborative team of research investigators and system-based investigators.
NHMRC has allocated up to $2.5 million per Centre per year for its own five-year funding contribution. The partners’ additional co-funding and in-kind contributions negotiated with the office of NHMRC will therefore make available as much $5 million per year for a centre.
The broad objectives for each Partnership Centre are to:
- support the implementation of research-informed changes in health and health care systems;
- synthesise and disseminate research relevant to improving health and health care system performance;
- undertake collaborative research, and
- build capacity, both within the research community to undertake applied research, and within the system to use research as part of change management
Click here for more information about the Partnership Centres initiative.
The Knowledge Broker
On 13 April 2012 the NHMRC farewelled Prof Jonathan Lomas as Knowledge Broker for the Partnership Centres for Better Health initiative. The NHMRC is pleased to announce that his replacement is Prof Philip Davies. Prof Davies has a long history of connecting the research and policy processes, as illustrated in his brief biography. Prior to taking up his current post as a Professor of Health Systems and Policy in the University of Queensland’s School of Population Health he was a Deputy Secretary in the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.
The Partnership Centres
Partnership Centre: Dealing with Cognitive and Related Functional Decline in Older People |
Partnership Centre: Systems Perspectives on Preventing Lifestyle-Related Chronic Health Problems |
Further Partnership Centres are currently under negotiation.
Key Partnership Centre Documents
- NHMRC Partnerships for Better Health - Partnership Centres Funding Rules 2011-2012 (PDF, 173KB)
- NHMRC Partnerships for Better Health - Partnership Centres Peer Review Guidelines - 2012-13 (PDF, 200KB)
- NHMRC Partnerships for Better Health - NHMRC Partnership Centres Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Contact for further information
Enquiries about the NHMRC Partnership Centres can be directed to partnership.centres@nhmrc.gov.au