Latest news and stories

RAO Alert - 19 April 2021
Sapphire Maintenance

Tracker – 19 April 2021
Welcome to Tracker, NHMRC’s fortnightly newsletter with the latest information on major activities and funding opportunities.

Ensuring evidence is translated into practice
Professor Rachelle Buchbinder is an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow. She is the Director and Professor in the Monash University Department of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine since 2007.

RAO Alert - 12 April 2021
Sapphire Maintenance

Music therapy to support people living with dementia
Dr Jeanette Tamplin from The University of Melbourne is using therapeutic singing groups to support people living with dementia.

Working to stop Parkinson's disease
Associate Professor Antony Cooper from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research is a cell and molecular biologist / geneticist with strong interests in elucidating how cellular dysfunction results in human diseases, with a specific interest in neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson’s Disease.
RAO Alert - 8 April 2021
Updated NHMRC Grant Holders Release

Tracker - 6 April 2021
Welcome to Tracker, NHMRC’s fortnightly newsletter with the latest information on major activities and funding opportunities.

RAO Alert - 1 April 2021
Ideas Grant - Minimum Data

RAO Alert two - 1 April 2021
Sapphire system access restored

RAO Alert one - 1 April 2021
Sapphire routine maintenance window extended

$27 million for next-generation medical research
Ten new medical research projects, including an education program to improve health literacy for socio-economically and culturally diverse new parents will be funded, thanks to the Morrison Government and the Australian medical community.

RAO Alert - 26 March 2021
NHMRC-European Union Collaborative Research Grants - funding outcomes announcement

Supporting collaboration in health and medical research with European Union
Research to develop an intelligent total body scanner capable of taking images of skin lesions in minutes for early detection of melanoma is one of five projects funded through a joint National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and European Union (EU) collaborative research grant scheme announced today.

Transforming how to treat blood cancers
Professor Mark Dawson is a clinician-scientist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, meaning he both treats blood cancer patients and leads cutting-edge cancer research in the lab.

Addressing the neglected global burden of child and drug-resistant tuberculosis
Ever since completing his PhD whilst working as a young paediatrician in South Africa, Professor Ben Marais from the University of Sydney has been on a mission to raise awareness of childhood tuberculosis (TB) and the transmissibility of drug-resistant TB — having seen first-hand the deadly impacts when this disease is left undiagnosed and untreated.

Tracker – 22 March 2021
Welcome to Tracker, NHMRC’s fortnightly newsletter with the latest information on major activities and funding opportunities.

RAO Alert - 22 March 2021
Synergy Grants – Minimum Data

RAO Alert - 18 March 2021
In this RAO Alert:

NHMRC statement
Nature paper: Modelling human blastocysts by reprogramming fibroblasts into iBlastoids

RAO Alert - 17 March 2021
MRFF - Clinical Trials Activity Initiatives

RAO Alert 16 March 2021
Annual Compliance Reporting 2020

RAO Alert - 16 March 2021
NHMRC Special Initiative in Mental Health Funding Outcomes Announced

$10 million for National Mental Health Research Centre
A national network of leading mental health researchers will work with more than 2000 people living with mental illness to deliver better models of mental health care across Australia, thanks to the Morrison Government.

RAO Alert - 12 March 2021
Enhancements to Sapphire

RAO Alert - 11 March 2021
Sapphire Maintenance

RAO Alert - 10 March 2021
2021 Ideas Grants Round - Now Open

NHMRC Tracker - 9 March 2021
Welcome to Tracker, NHMRC’s fortnightly newsletter with the latest information on major activities and funding opportunities

RAO Alert - 4 March 2021
Ideas Grants 2021 Key Changes Factsheet updates

RAO Alert - 2 March 2021
New and enhanced Sapphire dashboards

Measuring the effectiveness of cancer interventions
Economic evaluation is a tool used to decide which medical services and pharmaceuticals should be publicly funded. Professor Madeleine King, Director of the University of Sydney’s Quality of Life Office, has developed ways to measure quality of life for use in economic evaluation of cancer interventions in Australia and across the world.
RAO Alert - 26 February 2021
Investigator Grants Core Minimum Data Page - Update

RAO Alert 25 February 2021
Peer Review for Ideas Grants in 2021

Peer review for Ideas Grants in 2021
CEO Communique, February 2021

RAO Alert - 25 February 2021
Sapphire Maintenance

RAO Alert - 24 February 2021
Synergy Grant scheme for funding commencing in 2022 now open in Sapphire

NHMRC Tracker – 22 February 2021
Welcome to Tracker, NHMRC’s fortnightly newsletter with the latest information on major activities and funding opportunities.

Adding new cells to the mature central nervous system - Investigating their normal function and potential for repair
For people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), the myelin that covers nerve fibres in the central nervous system (brain, optic nerves and spinal cord) is damaged, leading to impairment of cognitive, motor and sometimes sensory functions.
Tracker, 8 February 2021
Welcome to Tracker, NHMRC’s fortnightly newsletter with the latest information on major activities and funding opportunities.

How our immune cells kill cancer
With her team, she discovered that, when target cells do not die quickly, it can cause inflammation, which hampers the body’s immune response.

COVID-3D: A small leap to scale up to COVID-19
Early in 2020, the University of Melbourne’s Bio21 team was working on protein modelling to better understand antimicrobial resistance for improved drug development. In March they turned their attention to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which had already undergone many mutations. In September, the team’s work was published in Nature Genetics.

Using digital innovations to address depression and binge drinking in young Australians
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin is a psychologist and leads an international team at the Priority Research Centre for Brain and Mental Health at the University of Newcastle. Her research focuses on the development and translation of evidence-based treatments for comorbid mental disorders for young Australians.

Improving the health and wellbeing of children by making it easy to be active throughout the day
Professor Jo Salmon from the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN), Deakin University received the Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Grant Award at last year’s NHMRC Research Excellence Awards. Her research focuses on how to effectively implement physical activity interventions at scale across the population, particularly in children. Physical inactivity is a leading modifiable risk factor for childhood obesity and other physical and mental health conditions.

Building Indigenous research capacity in Australia
For nearly three decades, Professor Jacinta Elston has worked in higher education, furthering efforts to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health in Australia. Professor Elston is an Aboriginal woman from North Queensland and the inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) at Monash University.

'10 of the Best': Showcasing health and medical research success stories
Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council has launched the 12th edition of 10 of the Best, showcasing significant projects that support the improvement of human health.
$300 million for the improvement of health for all Australians
The Morrison Government is investing $300 million in ground-breaking health and medical research projects across Australia aimed at delivering better treatments, diagnosis and care.
CEO Communique – 15 December 2020
Key points
- $260 million investment in 283 Ideas Grants was announced today.
- $20 million of extra funding has been provided to assist the sector’s recovery from disruption of research by COVID-19.
- Streamlined peer review enabled the Ideas Grants round to be completed despite COVID-19.
- Outcomes were released before the end of the year thanks to exceptional support from peer reviewers across the sector.

No more than 10 a week and 4 a day…
National Health and Medical Research Council confirms new national guidelines for reducing the health risks from drinking alcohol.

Mapping the trajectory of depression in primary care to improve treatment
The Diamond cohort study — Better management of those at risk of persistent and disabling depression.

Targeting dangerous heart attack and stroke-causing plaques
Heart attack and stroke are major causes of death and disability worldwide. With over 500,000 Australians suffering from some form of coronary artery disease.