The Building Capacity and Broadening Capability grant program evaluation report provides the results of a series of analyses of NHMRC grant data. These analyses investigated long-term trends in the types of researchers and research being funded. Their purpose was to determine the extent to which NHMRC is achieving its grant program objective. Specifically, the analyses examined how well the program supports the research capacity and capability needed to underpin a world-class national health system.
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NHMRC is committed to embedding equity in its grant program and supporting diversity in the health and medical research workforce. As part of this commitment and relevant to data in the report, NHMRC has taken actions across a range of areas.
Supporting early and mid-career researchers
Investigator Grants, one of NHMRC’s major grant schemes, is split into leadership levels. This ensures that researchers at all career stages, including early and mid-career researchers, are supported through this grant scheme. In 2025, over 50% of Investigator Grants were awarded to researchers less than 10 years post-PhD. To further support researchers at the beginning of their careers, from the 2027 round, the Emerging Leadership Level 1 Research Support Package will increase from $50,000 to $75,000 per year. Additional investments specifically for early and mid-career researchers at Emerging Leadership Level 2 and Leadership Level 1 is also used to address low funded rates at these levels and historically poor retention rates in the health and medical research workforce among this cohort; since 2024 over $103.3 million has been used to fund an additional 49 grants (25 EL2 and 24 L1) for researchers at these levels.
Supporting regional, rural and remote communities
NHMRC is committed to improving health outcomes for regional, rural and remote (RRR) communities. The 2025–26 NHMRC Corporate Plan identifies research that promotes health equity in RRR communities as an area where focused NHMRC initiatives can make a significant contribution to building a healthy Australian community. NHMRC continues to strengthen its focus on RRR Australia by supporting research that addresses the unique health needs of RRR communities, including through targeted grant opportunities, such as the Regional, Rural and Remote Capacity Building Grant Opportunity 2026 and strategic funding streams.
NHMRC is also strengthening its identification of researchers located in RRR areas and research with an RRR focus in application data. These improvements enable NHMRC to better understand which RRR communities are represented within the RRR workforce and to support equitable representation in peer review.
Ensuring equity in peer review
As part of NHMRC’s commitment to equity in peer review, an analysis of the two largest NHMRC grant schemes, Investigator Grants and Ideas Grants, was performed to investigate whether assessors show bias towards applications originating from their own state or territory. The NHMRC peer review analysis: Investigating the potential for jurisdictional bias found no evidence to suggest the presence of systematic bias by assessors favouring applicants from their own jurisdiction.
NHMRC continues to review its peer review processes to identify the potential for bias to influence peer reviewer assessments.
Aligning and leveraging data
Better alignment and coordination of data from NHMRC’s Medical Research Endowment Account (MREA) and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) is providing deeper insight into researchers and funding patterns across both funding sources.
NHMRC is working with other government agencies to explore what data assets are available to enrich understanding of the capacity and capability of the research workforce and support measurement of the impact of health and medical research.