I am proud and pleased to reflect on the enormous contribution health and medical research has made to the well-being of all Australians on the 75th Anniversary of the establishment of the National Health and Medical Research Council.
During the past 75 years, Australia has seen a dramatic improvement in our life expectancy. In the 1930s, when the NHMRC was founded, an Australian male might live to about 63 years and an Australian woman for just over 67 years. Today, life expectancy has increased to over 79 years for men and almost 84 years for women. Health and medical research has been integral to preventing, diagnosing and treating major diseases, such as in cancer, cardio-vascular disease and in treating infectious and parasitic diseases.
Despite these enormous improvements in our life expectancy and quality of life, NHMRC needs to continue to evolve, adapt and respond to the health issues that challenge us. These are just a few:
- Better evidence based health system that ensures that patients and carers directly benefit from health and medical research
- Assisting Australia’s health and social policies to respond to the demographic of an ageing population
- Understanding the causes and responses to social and economic disparities in health and access to health care, particularly in Australia’s Indigenous communities
- Reducing the burden of complex chronic diseases, and
- Responding to the National Health Priorities of arthritis and musculo-skeletal conditions, asthma, cancer control, cardiovascular health, diabetes mellitus, injury prevention and control, mental health, and obesity.
Today, as we mark our 75th anniversary, I would especially like to acknowledge the many thousands of people who have contributed so much to health and medical research and the NHMRC since 1936 - as participants in research, by serving on NHMRC’s committees or by reviewing applications.
In particular, the 15 leading lights in Australian health and medical research who provided such effective leadership to the Council over the past 75 years, from our first chair, Dr John Cumpston in 1936 through to our current chair, Professor Michael Good, who is also leading the search for a vaccine for malaria.
I also express my deepest appreciation to:
- the current and past members of our Council and all our committees who provide the leadership for our health and medical research schemes and devote so many hours to developing our policies and processes. Each triennium, nearly 100 busy professionals have contributed their time to appointments to NHMRC Principal Committees and Council. Each year, ten times that number are appointed to advisory committees, assisting in the development of a range of health and ethical advice
- the researchers without whose high quality work, we couldn’t choose the best research to fund
- the teams of researchers in laboratories, universities, and clinical settings all across Australia, who are truly making a difference to the health of our communities
- the community members who participate in our workshops and consultation processes, ensuring that we are able to represent and respond to the needs of patients, consumers and carers in our health and our ethics advice
- the dedicated staff of the Office of the NHMRC who all share a belief in the real contribution that health and medical research makes to the lives of all Australians and have worked with the research community to bring this vision to reality, and
- Government and the Australian taxpayer, whose support and trust in the work of the NHMRC and research community is integral to our goal of working to build a healthy Australia.
The next 75 years are set to be very exciting – people living with the current diseases that plague us can anticipate better health. We will be able to tackle the problems that will emerge into the future. It is very clear that we will continue to see health and medical research play a vital role in our community.
Happy 75th Anniversary NHMRC.
Professor Warwick Anderson AM
Chief Executive Officer
National Health and Medical Research Council
First Session - Hobart February, 1937
Taken from Sixty Years of the National Health and Medical Research Council 1936-1996
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