National Health and Medical Research Council

Numbers of Applications, number of funded grants and funded percentage, by Broad Research Area for Application Years 2005 to 2012  (Grant funding  commencing  2006 to 2013).

Current as of 22 October 2012

*Notes:

1. How BRA is designated. Broad Research Area (BRA) is the descriptor of the research provided by the applicants, at the time of applying for the grant. NHMRC does not verify this categorisation and so the data provided here should be regarded as indicative only.

2. BRA and distribution to GRPs. The BRA categorisation provided by grant applicants is not used to determine the allocation of applications to grant review panels. This is done primarily on the basis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Field of Research classification. In addition this year, we have asked grant applicants to choose an indicative panel from a select list. . Most GRPs are multi-disciplinary and have applications from more than one BRAs, though the mix of BRA applications will vary depending on the areas that the GRP is addressing (e.g., the mix will be quite different between the Nursing and Gerontology GRP and  the Cancer Genetics GRP, just as an example of contrast ). Thus the success rate of each BRA is not predetermined but is the outcome of the deliberations of more than 30 different GRPs.

3. Disappearance of the “Preventative Medicine” BRA in 2010.  This BRA was introduced two decades ago but is not thought of as one of the research pillars internationally. Analysis showed that the types of grants in this category were a combination of clinical medicine (especially secondary prevention) and some public health. Overall however, public health approaches to prevention were mostly categorised into the Public Health BRA. In the 2010 grant application round, Research Committee agreed to remove this BRA upon the recommendation of the Review of Public Health Research in Australia, by the NHMRC Committee chaired by Prof. Don Nutbeam. (Nutbeam Review recommendation 14).