National Health and Medical Research Strategy Chair Webinar 2 – 7 April  2025 – Video

Natasha Ploenges: 

Good afternoon, everyone. Firstly, I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land we are meeting today, and I acknowledge the traditional owners of the other lands across which people are joining us virtually for the webinar too right across country. 

Today I'm joining them from the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people in Canberra and I pay my respects to the elders, past and present. And I also acknowledge all of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are attending this webinar with us today. 

I am Natasha Ploenges. I am the Chief Executive Officer for the Health and Medical Research Office in the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. On behalf of Rosemary Huxtable, chair of the National Health and Medical Research Strategy, and Professor Steve Wesselingh, Chief Executive Officer for the National Health and Medical Research Council, I thank you all very much for joining us for the webinar today. 

There are a number of people who I know have been quite keen to be able to join us for this webinar. It is one of a series of webinars that we are having and I do thank you all very much for joining us. 

During the webinar that we have, I do ask that you enter any questions that you might have via the Q&A function that's been provided. There is no chat function for this webinar itself. In the interest of time and making sure that we do manage to get through all of the elements of the webinar, I do ask of course or let you know that we will be answering those questions at the end during that very specific Q&A session that we will be having. 

One of the important things that I do also need to let you all know about is to acknowledge that as you may already be aware, the Australian Government is in caretaker mode. Now, what that means is that during the caretaker period, the department and the Australian Government avoids actions that may bind an incoming government. So as such, the content of this webinar is very much going to be limited to focusing on providing information of a factual and administrative nature as well. 

By way of a little recap I guess, in May 2024 the Minister for Health and Aged Care announced the development of the National Health and Medical Research Strategy. 
During this webinar you will often hear us talk about the National Strategy or just the Strategy. So the aim of a National Strategy is very much about developing a framework to establish priorities to ensure all Australians benefit from health and medical research by producing better health outcomes for the community. 

Also, optimising existing money in health and medical research, encourage greater coordination and partnerships across the sector and improve efficiency and effectiveness of research efforts. 

Also, foster a strong research workforce and create that sort of attractive investment that is necessary for a sustainable research pipeline from discovery and innovation to translation and commercialisation. 

It will cover the entire sector and include all levels of government, industry, philanthropy, academia and consumers and community as well. 

The role of the National Health and Medical Research Strategy chair. So Rosemary Huxtable as I have said, is the Chair of, is the Chair of the Strategy. Rosemary's role is about providing objective and relevant advice to the department in the development process and leading that consultation process with the sector as well. 

Specifically, Rosemary is leading consultations with key stakeholders, including peak bodies, industry, philanthropy, academia and consumers. Also, engaging with state and territory government counterparts and also overseeing the public consultation process of the draft National Strategy itself too. 

Now and I mentioned this is the second in a series of webinars that we will be doing. So with the first webinar that was held by Rosemary on the 5th of December 2024,  Rosemary had provided an overview of the approach for the development of the National Strategy for next steps and particularly importantly, the ways in which you can get involved. 

The first webinar also presented findings from the National Health and Medical Research Workforce Audit, which was a commissioned report that has been published on the Department of Health and Aged Care's website. It was published back in November 2024. 

Now, just to recap on some of those findings for you. Oh, before I highlight some of those key findings from that research, just confirming what you can also see on your screen is the QR code, so please feel free to be able to use that and you can go back to that very first webinar reporting if you did not have an opportunity to join that webinar at that point in time, or if you have not had an opportunity yet to be able to,  catch up on it. 

Now some of those key findings from the workforce audit included there is a high percentage of researchers that seem to be leaving the sector, so that was about 60% of researchers leave for non-active research roles. The reasons that seem to have been identified is that it was mostly due to lack of job security, which appear to be evident from the findings that 55% of researchers at universities and medical research institutes are on fixed term or casual contracts. 

Part of the other findings is that only one in four researchers at very senior levels in particular are women.  

There are also recommendations from the report that are being considered in development of the national strategy too, so a survey was also posted following that webinar in December 2024 that was also seeking your thoughts on the initial focus areas for the development of the National Strategy. As well as your feedback on the frequency of reviews to the national strategy and also your preference on consultation methods as well. 

As I had mentioned, there was that QR code and that recording of that first webinar is available on the Department of Health and Aged Care's website as well. 

Now I will hand over to Rosemary now to be able to provide an overview of those survey results from that first webinar and detail the development processes so far for the National Strategy to date and importantly, the feedback that has been heard from the sector today. Thanks very much, Rosemary. 

Rosemary Huxtable:  

Thanks, Natasha for that introduction and thanks to everyone who's joining us here today. It's great to see another good turn up for this second webinar. 

I just wanted to start by quickly recapping on what we heard from the first webinar. First of all, we had a great turn out in terms of responses to the survey. We received close to 600 submissions, with the majority of respondents indicating that they represented the research academic sectors, followed by health professionals. 

But you know that meant that around 3/4 of the people who participated in the webinar actually went on to complete the survey. So you know, I see that as a very positive indication that people are very keen to be heard and have confidence that this process will allow their voices to be heard. 

So as you can see from the slide, the five most important issues as indicated by first preferencing, that people considered need needed to be considered in the development of the National Strategy were, funding across the research pipeline with 141 respondents, the health and medical research workforce with 129, and then pretty close between health inequity, burden of disease and collaboration across the jurisdictions, organisations and individuals. 

All of these issues I can assure you, are being raised with me in other phase one consultations that I'm undertaking. And you'll see that from material that I'll present to you later in the webinar are being actively considered as we develop the National Strategy. 

In terms of frequency of when a National Strategy should be reviewed, just over half suggested once every five years while over 1/3 indicated once every three years was an ideal review period, and so certainly we will be considering what's the appropriate, you know, ongoing review mechanisms for a strategy. 

And also there was strong support for many of the activities that we are doing by way of consultation; webinars, the written submission process, the surveys that will accompany the webinars, and there will be another one available coming out of today's webinar, and the roundtables and the one-on-one discussions that I'm having with the sector. 

So, you know, we're really getting that message that people are looking for a variety of ways to be engaged and we're offering that variety of ways and taking on board all the feedback we're getting as we fine tune the consultation strategy. 

So just in terms of this webinar today, I'll be providing you with an update on the work that's been done really since last we spoke back in December. I will cover different topics from what was covered in the first webinar, but we've already touched again on the workforce audit, which Natasha has already presented some findings on, and we did talk about in the last webinar.  

As well, the primary purpose of this webinar is really to update you on the findings of the commissioned report that tested community views on health and medical research. Also, to update you on some of the internal development work that we're conducting, that's particularly focused on international health and medical research strategies - so looking at what's happening internationally and how it might inform what we're doing - commercialisation challenges, and also that issue of the impact of research - so how do we assess how effective we are in the health and medical research community. 

I also wanted to take the opportunity to share with you my early thinking in terms of what I've been hearing as I've been going around talking to people over the last three months. And really, my early thinking around what a framework might look like and I'm happy to share that, but obviously, you know, I’m still working through the consultation process and we're a few months away from the draft strategy that we're committed to provide by mid-year. 

So in terms of the development process to date, so this just gives you a timeline of the process that we're putting in place right across the development process right through to December of this year. 

And obviously a project like this requires extensive consultation. There are many different stakeholder groups that have an interest in the sector, and I've really spent the last few months talking to a large number of people, peak bodies and individual stakeholders, partly to inform the sector and make sure the sectors well informed about the work that we’re doing and the development process that's underway, but importantly, to gather ideas that can inform the development of the strategy, and I'm hearing lots of perspectives on challenges, on the achievements of the sector and the opportunities that stakeholders see through a National Strategy. 

So the consultation process, as you can see from the slide includes both open engagement with the broader sector and targeted discussions with key stakeholders. And so in terms of the targeted discussions I've been talking to specific individuals, peak bodies, consumer community groups, government agencies and organisations with significant expertise or interest in the sector. 

So all that work, we're now in the process of analysing and synthesizing the themes that have been emerging from that work, with a draft National Strategy scheduled to be released late in June of this year. 

That's really when the formal consultation process will begin, based off that draft 
Strategy. I'll be going around the country doing roundtables and workshops. There'll be a written submission process. There'll be further webinars and further one-on-one discussions. So that will all inform the final Strategy for delivery to the government at the end of this year. And then for government consideration and release when they consider the time is right. 

Evidence is also being gathered from commissioned reviews you can see that in the green box - the Health and Medical Research Workforce Audit that we've already discussed, and work is being finalised on a funding landscape review. It's anticipated that this will be completed with the report being made publicly available in the near future, and a review of general public experiential knowledge and current perceptions and attitudes toward health and medical research via Community Focus Groups. And I'll present the findings from that today. 

To supplement that, the department's undertaken those reviews that I mentioned, a review of national and international health and medical research strategies, a review of the commercialisation landscape, and then that review of Australian research outputs. So, as I said, all that will be synthesized and analysed, we've been working on an issues paper also to inform these consultations and we'll put this on the website very shortly. And I anticipate that when the draft strategy comes out in mid-year, that will be accompanied by a discussion paper that really goes into more detail and provides the evidence around the themes that are being developed in the consultation process. 

So just to sum up on kind of where we've got to with consultations so far, I've conducted 29, one-on-one discussions. There's about another 10 planned in the next few weeks, held round tables, workshops and advisory group meetings. I've also met with all the State and Territory Health Chief Executive Officers and a working group of state and territory officials is being formed to support the review. So that just gives you kind of a sense of what's happened over the last few months. 

In terms of the challenges that are being identified, this slide just represents 3 elements of the health and medical research landscape and takes the perspective of the research funders, the research organizations, those that are conducting health and medical research and those who are predominantly responsible for translating that research. 

And while there's a degree of I know artificial separation in organising the sector in this way, it's a useful tool to understand some of the key roles and the challenges that are faced in different parts of the sector. What we're hearing is that from the funder perspective, there's a lack of strategic coordination which is leading to uncoordinated priority setting, duplication of schemes, areas of unmet need, low success rates and an unplanned workforce. 

Research organisations are having to cover the direct and indirect costs of research with those indirect costs that are not covered by grants, and due to the nature of the funding system, smaller projects are being funded for short term durations rather than larger programs of work, which means researchers are undergoing grant fatigue. 

We're also hearing that there are inadequate levels of research, translation and insufficient measures of research impact. This includes a lack of investment in skills gaps in taking research outcomes to scale, and a lack of accountability for research outcomes. 

Inconsistency in the ways that research is measured leads to a lack of accountability on researchers and an overall inadequate understanding of the impact of investment in health and medical research in Australia.  

I mean, that's kind of the negative view I guess, but to put then a positive frame on it, this slide is really to design, designed to show all the themes that have been generated through the consultation process and it's designed to show what we're hearing a strategy should aspire to deliver. 

So a key objective as presented through feedback is to deliver an impactful, sustainable and strategically aligned sector. Nine themes have emerged so far in the work that's been conducted. The first and the top right hand corner goes to establishing health and medical research priorities and priority setting now and in the future through a systematic, explicit and transparent process to ensure that priorities align with community need and map and respond to emerging threats. This includes ensuring there's greater geographic and sector balance across the research landscape, in how priorities are set.] 

We're hearing that there's strong support for continued dedicated effort on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research. Particularly the specific needs of the relatively small and overburdened workforce and ensuring research priorities are determined and conducted in close consultation with the community and certainly I've been given a number of case studies that show very positive outcomes from health and medical research when conducted by an Indigenous workforce in consultation with the impacted communities. 

A theme that does come up in many of the conversations is about optimising available health and medical research funding, avoiding duplication on and burden on both researchers and research funders.  

For research organisations, a big concern is addressing the indirect cost of research and other infrastructure costs and the sector fed back the sustainability of research organisations can be improved by addressing these indirect costs and through better research processes. 

In terms of translation at the bottom of the wheel, it's important to ensure processes are in place from the start of projects to enable adequate translation of research into health policy and clinical practice, and also looking at the barriers including the funding barriers as to why that might not be occurring now systematically in the system. 

Research processes - there are a number of ways that current research processes can be improved to drive strategic outcomes. That includes effective community and consumer involvement in research, embedding and rewarding a research culture in healthcare organisations, and ensuring that there are efficient research, ethics, governance, data sharing and regulation approval processes. Some of this relates to other work that's underway that I'll come to a bit later, including the one stop shop for clinical trials. 

Another major issue is around the research workforce. The need to improve job security of the workforce and devise a plan for the workforce that considers career pathways and future needs.  

The costs and opportunity of emerging technologies and their use in health and medical research, including where artificial intelligence fits in that schema, also need to be understood. 

And finally, the system should have an efficient and accurate way of measuring the impact of research at both projects and aggregate levels, that provides accountability and transparency, that really explains the policy and research benefit and improves public engagement. 

So that's just a kind of snapshot and coming from that really, I guess I'm beginning to think through what a framing of a national strategy might look like. So it really takes those outcomes one step further. 

The central purpose, I think, is really that's emerging is about delivering a coordinated strategic and future focused research ecosystem, one that's strategic and can achieve the goals that are set out in the slide around priority setting, support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and medical research, optimising existing funding, sustainable research organisations; supporting research translation and commercialisation, also embedding efficient and effective processes, having a strong and sustainable workforce, harnessing those opportunities that come from emerging technologies, and developing clear and consistent measures of research impact. 

I think another important area for development within the National Strategy is being able to explain and provide the evidence base for the productivity and economic benefits that are delivered through health and medical research. So placing that Strategy in the broader sort of social and socio-economic context. 

So that gives you an overview of the consultations to date and where that is then taking me and the team in terms of framing of a draft Strategy. 

So now I just wanted to cover off what we've heard from the Community Focus Groups and just give you a little window into some of the work that we've been doing on international strategies and commercialisation challenges and impact assessment. 

So I’ve just got three slides here on what we what we heard coming out of the Community Focus Groups. To recap, the Community Focus Groups were conducted over several months. They conducted 24 unique events and there were 158 participants in this qualitative research. 

So this first slide just outlines what participants indicated were the elements that are highly valued in contributing to trust and perceived effectiveness of health and medical research. 

So on the left hand side of the slide, the things that contributed to trust and perceived effectiveness were having systems - appropriate systems - of regulation and ethics that built confidence in the research system, research priorities that aligned with community need, where there was experience or observations of the impact of research, the importance of transparency in the priority setting and research processes, timeliness - that research was responding to community need in a timely way, and the presence of any perceived agenda which was seen as detracting from trust in the research system. 

So I think you know that in itself is a sort of interesting reflection from the broader community around how they frame health and medical research and their feelings of trust, or what builds trust in that system. 

On the other side of the slide, it highlights the entities that are most trusted and the level of trust associated with them and perhaps not surprisingly, but I think important for the work that we're doing, a key take away was there are higher levels of trust in the public sector and not-for-profit organizations, and there's lower trust in the private/for profit parts of the sector - so private companies that are selling health products. 

And I think you know, it's important to reflect on that, because that can in itself be a barrier to commercialisation and translation. So how we communicate with the population around the benefits of the whole research landscape, not just certain parts of the research landscape, and how that contributes to improving health outcomes across the board, I think is one of the challenges that this work’s raised. 

In terms of the participants interest in being involved in health and medical research, they indicated a number of barriers that they perceive could impact on their willingness to be involved. You can see those on the right hand side of the slide that ranges from not being aware of opportunities that might be available, to time constraints, to limited confidence or engaging with complex information or not understanding what it means for me as an individual to be involved, whether they've had negative past experiences, whether they're able to access opportunities to participate or being uncomfortable discussing their personal health conditions or not feeling that their contributions will be valued. 

So I think again, you know, considering what these perceptions of barriers are and how they're addressed is one of the challenges that we have. 

In terms of people's willingness to be involved in specific research activities, the continuum on the left hand side of the slide shows, perhaps not surprisingly, that where there is more perceived effort required, such as participating in committees or consumer advisory groups, people expressed a lower likelihood of involvement, compared to sort of light touch efforts, whether that's enabling access to their health data or easy feedback into their experiences of healthcare or broader community consultation exercises. They were more open to those opportunities. 

And then finally, participants were asked what they considered should be factors in setting research priorities and I think this is a really interesting list of factors that people identified. Remember that the people who are part of this research, you know, they didn't know very much about the health and medical research system. 
But when they thought through the issues they came up with an interesting set of factors which I think, you know, are important for us to take into account as we think about priority setting. 

So those factors were the severity of outcome or impact on quality of life of a research proposal, the capacity to respond to emerging health threats, having a health promotion and prevention lens supporting holistic health and well-being, the cost to the health system to treat or manage a condition that might be the subject of research impact on quality, and accessibility of delivery of care and prevalence of a health condition or issue. So again, this is all work that will be taken into account as we go forward. 

Just moving on to some of the other work that's been undertaken by the team, predominantly so internal work. Firstly, looking at the research commercialisation landscape. So there's been a review of commercialisation that's been conducted within the department. That includes an examination of the national landscape and the financial support that flows through various funding programs and initiatives, and the role of key national stakeholders and peak bodies in supporting the commercialisation of research, some of the state and territory landscapes and programs and initiatives supported in those jurisdictions, and the opportunities and challenges currently facing commercialisation of health and medical research. 

So I'll just quickly recap the challenges. You can see the opportunities also on the slide, but from the top, what's been identified is that while there is funding, tax incentives and support available for commercialisation, both at a national and a state and territory level, there's not a lot of connection between those initiatives and there's a lack of a central, surface, map, so it can be quite challenging for people to navigate their way through the opportunities that might be available to support a commercialisation proposal. 

Furthermore, there have been a number of large-scale programs and strategic plans that are developed with extensive consultation and sector engagement. 

However, sometimes those are not well communicated after the event or there is confusion and communication as priorities might change or governments change, and so one of the challenges is how to have a kind of stable roll out of some of the work that's done. 

Researcher capacity and capability gaps - so researchers who are developing intellectual property with commercial potential can find it hard to commit the time and the bandwidth to lead their inventions down a commercialisation pipeline. And I guess in discussions with me, it's often been raised that it's not really a focus of training around developing this commercialisation mindset, or knowledge and how you introduce a commercialisation sort of early in the research process and have people as part of the research process who are skilled in that pathway. 

And finally, complexity around regulatory processes can present challenges, especially for small and medium enterprise manufacturers that have limited capital reserves. So it's securing those approvals and listings for reimbursements can take quite a long time and can be seen as too high risk for a relatively small domestic market, and I just note that some of the recommendations of the recent Health Technology Assessment review are seeking to address some of those issues. 

In terms of research impact and measuring research impacts, we've been looking at how to measure impact both at the micro, at the project level, but also the macro, the system level. And you know, I consider that that's really critical in framing arguments about the productivity and economic benefits of research. And it's also important to have confidence that there's accountability for the outcome of the research dollar writ large, and for the progress of individual projects. So I think this is a really challenging area. It as we know it can take a very long period of time to see outcomes for research that's being undertaken and sometimes the outcomes aren't exactly what were planned at the beginning of the process. But I do think that we need to come up with models that allow us to assess the impact of investment and a key outcome of the National Strategy I hope will be grappling with that particular issue and the question at the bottom of this slide is really a question that will be asked in the consultation. 

And then finally, the team have been looking at various international health and medical research strategies from other countries that are similar to Australia. Similar in terms of their systems of delivering governance, their demographics and the processes used to develop and articulate nation-wide strategies. 

So I would note that while we've looked at the strategies that are up on the slide,  some of these are really more akin to a strategy, for example, for an NHMRC type body and more, and not necessarily the national strategy that we're working on. Some are more akin to the National Strategy that we're working on, but some of the, I guess highlights of these, that we need to just consider in our own work. 

Firstly, the benefits of having an overarching coordinating agency that sits, you know, above a kind of commonwealth-type national research institute that is more nationally focused across state and territory effort, philanthropy, industry and the like. So that sort of overarching coordination agency. The question you know to ask, particularly in New Zealand, but a good question to ask around sovereign capability and what are our expectations as a nation in terms of our sovereign capability and effort and how we prioritize through that lens. 

And then finally, again, this theme around having clear benchmarks and mechanisms to measure the impact of the strategy which has come through in the work that Canada's done. 

And finally, and I get asked about this. So I thought it was important to put this slide up. We are very acutely aware that there are a range of pieces of work that either have been conducted or are being conducted across the Commonwealth and also in individual States and Territories. And just to assure you all that we are seeking to work with all these other bodies of work that are occurring to make sure that we don't, sort of, exhaust people with consultation processes and that we align in terms of, you know, not sort of doubling up on the work. 

So we're certainly working with the Department of Industry in regards to the Strategic Examination of Research and Development. Some of these initiatives are Commonwealth Health based, which is, you know, fortunate. I've met several times with Professor Ian Chubb around the clinical trials one stop shop and briefed their 
Inter-Governmental project group. 

And as I said, I met with state and territory health CEO's about a month ago. And they're very keen to be on board and are setting up processes through which we can engage with the States and Territories. 

So just to finish up, I guess this is a high-level summary of where we're at. We're still in the evidence gathering phase. We're kind of moving into the analysis and interpretation phase through to the development of that draft strategy and discussion paper for release in the middle of the year. And then as mentioned, there will be that broad consultation process taking place in the second-half of the year and we’ll be holding both in person and virtual events, and a written submission process as part of that. So we'll continue to be very open and welcoming your feedback. 

I also just wanted to kind of assure people that in my thinking certainly is that we will have a strategy that is accompanied by implementation, you know, action plans. You know, if a strategy is over a 10-year period, it's important to have shorter timeframes to assess how effective that strategy is. So looking at, you know implementation plans over three-year or five-year timeframes, very much part of that. 

And finally, we're opening a second survey today to guide sector views on the National Strategy. So I'm hoping that we have, you know, a very positive participation that we had coming out of the last survey, and that will close on the 12th of May. So in a month’s time. 

So I know we're going to have questions. We've got plenty of time for questions, I think. People have been submitting questions in advance. Partly around the National Strategy development process, including as they registered for this webinar, some of the key themes that have been coming through today is really around the scope of the national strategy. So what it includes and excludes and the priority setting. Processes I think I've probably, you know, through the slides that we've done today, hopefully touched on many of those themes. 

There's also been specific questions about the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities in the development of the National Strategy and priority setting and also the application to grant processes and assessment processes. I'll leave that part to Steve, who's with us today, but in terms of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander involvement, I mean, I have covered this to an extent already, but I just wanted to reiterate how important I think it is that the National Strategy really does address that issue of health and medical research that involves Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities, and is conducted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lead investigators. I think that's, you know, central to the development of the strategy. 

I'm very pleased to be working closely with Professor Yvette Roe, who's part of the NHMRC and also part of my strategic advisory group, and I've had some early discussions with NACCHO, with other peak agencies and I'll be meeting shortly with the indigenous advisory group at the NHMRC. So I mean part of that consultation is really talking to the community about the most effective and appropriate way to consult with First Nations community representatives. So I'll be continuing to have those discussions. 

I might then hand over to Steve if he just wants to address any of the issues that we've raised today in the slides that we've presented, but also to address that research process question and then we'll open up for broader questions. Thanks Steve. 

Steve Wesselingh:  

Thanks very much Rosemary, and thanks for a brilliant presentation and also Natasha for the introduction. 

And I also want to thank all those who have been involved in any of the consultations and the gathering of evidence, and we really have had a lot of enthusiasm and engagement from the sector and that's been really, really important. 

Obviously, we want people, as this slide indicates, to stay connected and involved. And obviously, as Rosemary said, there's a survey following this webinar and please be involved as you were in the last survey and that would be terrific and the QR code is here. I also wanted to highlight because we had a number of questions already online about the webinar, about whether it's been recorded and whether the slides are available. And again we can say that they will be available shortly after the webinar. So people are obviously enthusiastic and keen to again look at the webinar but also look at the slides again. So that's been really important. 

Rosemary mentioned the sort of operational issues of grant processes, of peer review, and of grant applications and so on, and I guess my answer to that is that's very much an ongoing process anyway, we are constantly getting feedback from the sector about peer review processes, about application processes, and about the sort of post-award processes in terms of granting and we work very, very closely with the MRFF and the sort of harmonising of what we do and what the MRFF does, is  continuing on and a lot of great outcomes have come from that. 

In terms of the Strategy, I think the Strategy will address some of those questions because they have been bubbling to the surface and also bubbling to the surface has been, as Rosemary pointed out, those issues of coordination. So at a very local level, coordination between the NHMRC and the MRFF, but also us talking to the ARC in terms of what the ARC is doing, and also then talking to NCRIS and we had a question online about national infrastructure funding and whether that would be part of the Strategy and we certainly are looking at the alignment of the National Health and Medical Research Strategy, alignment of NHMRC and MRFF with strategic infrastructure funding that comes from bodies like NCRIS and also what the Department of Industry or the Department of Education might be doing.  

So I think they are really good questions about coordination across the board and also as Rosemary said, we have looked overseas and we looked at the UKRI as an example, which does provide that coordination in the UK and obviously that would be something that will be considered in the context of the Strategy. So that, I think is a really important and common question that people are asking. 

Also looking online now, another common question also about infrastructure, is will the Strategy consider the funding and infrastructure required for consumers to be truly involved in research. If we accept that research is better when consumers are involved right from the beginning, will the Strategy consider the infrastructure and funding required for that and certainly you know, through the Consumer Advisory Group that advises NHMRC and MRFF, we've certainly been talking about that. I might just check whether Rosemary with her conversations with the consumers around the country has a view on that as well. 

Rosemary Huxtable:  

Yeah. So thanks, Steve. 

So I think that whole challenge around, sort of, consumer engagement and involvement in the research process, it's one we do have to grapple with. Certainly from what I'm hearing, research is going to be much more effective if consumers are engaged from the beginning and it's also a critical pathway to the sort of translation, and taking research into practice. So building, sort of, capability as well, in research organisations around how to best engage with consumers. 

But it is quite challenging you know. We've done the Community Focus Groups, which give us quite an interesting perspective on what, sort of, those consumers really thought about the opportunities to be involved. And we saw from that, you know, opportunities for involvement that were kind of less onerous were much, more seen as more likely to elicit engagement. 

So I think sort of cracking that difficult problem about what's the best way to engage with consumers and yes, how that is factored into research projects. I know that you and the NHMRC have been, you know, much more kind of forward leaning in regard to that element. But I think it will be a theme that comes out of the Strategy and so developing that sort of capability, what's it going to take to get, you know, greater representation of consumers, is one of the things that I do think we have to grapple with. I don't necessarily have the answers to that right now, but I think, you know, I don't want to put things kind of off the table, especially when we know that they're so fundamental to having an effective research sector. 

Steve Wesselingh:  

Thanks Rosemary. The next question online is about the international or global situation. Really important question. 

There's a lot happening globally. We know that's impacting on our researchers in Australia and researchers all over the world and impacting on the really important work that we do at a global health level in terms of, you know, issues in low- and middle-income countries and the impact on the lives of people. So it really is a very important time in health and medical research internationally. And I know Rosemary, you've been chatting to the group of eight and others about some of those issues. 
Did you just want to comment on that? 

Rosemary Huxtable:  

So look, Steve, I think it's fair to say that there's a lot of concern in the sector. 

I was at a round table last week and it was quite, sort of, palpable in the room as people are observing some of the things that are happening internationally and to, you know, many of their kind of research partners and individuals who they know well and have worked with very closely. 

But I think too, you know, there's opportunity in some of that. I mean to me, one of the things that I thought about as I was having those discussions last week and we talked about was, you know, how to really make that very strong case about the importance of research and the importance of, sort of, evidence from a productivity perspective and from the sort of health benefits that yes, you know, benefits are great for individuals, but they're critical for a community and how community is efficient and effective as it can be. 

So I think, you know, it really does challenge us to be quite forward leaning around the productivity and economic benefit agenda. I mean, we can control what we can control, you know, we can't necessarily control the whole environment in which we operate. 

So I think, you know, the National Strategy kind of coming along at this time, in some ways it makes it challenging, but it also makes it, I think, you know, almost more relevant when you think about, you know, really the importance of having a kind of a strong national approach, but you know that can resonate with the community. 

And how do you really get that resonance with the community and you know, the Community Focus Groups gave us some ideas in that regard. And when you look at, what people were saying around how they would be sort of assessing research priorities, you know, that was, I thought, a relatively sophisticated list as to the sorts of factors that you should take into account. 

So, you know, I think we seize the moment is what we need to do, and you know, build our evidence base in sort of fairly hard, you know, economic terms around what the benefits are here. 

Steve Wesselingh:  

Thanks Rosemary - terrific answer and I think I’d just like to emphasize a couple of points that Rosemary made. 

One is about sovereign capability. I think sovereign capability is becoming increasingly important and also about leadership - I think it's really important that Australia leads at this time, in terms of the things that we value, what our values are and we need not to throw those values out the window, and importantly leadership for the region, particularly the Pacific region, which doesn't necessarily register on the scale in terms of perhaps other parts of the world. So I think those two points are also very important. 

We also have a question about culturally and linguistically diverse patients and community groups in terms of the Strategy and how can we garner greater inclusion of CALD consumers in research. Maybe as we haven't asked Natasha a question yet, so I'm going to send that one to Natasha. 

Natasha Ploenges:  

Thanks very much for that, Steve. 

I think in a lot of ways, Rosemary has also already touched on this when she was talking about engagement of consumers, not only as part of the National Strategy, but more broadly of course, about consumers and communities being involved in research and all the way through the research pipeline. 

For me that is equally, of course, talking about and reflecting on, the important cohorts within the community and the consumer space as well, particularly for our country where we do have a lot of diverse both culturally and linguistically diverse communities, it's exceptionally important to make sure that all consumers and all communities do get to not only participate as part of research, because they're going to be, of course, the recipients of the good work that comes out of health and medical research - so the types of either treatments or services or guidelines or products that come out of it. 

So it is always exceptionally important that there is that connection with diverse communities and consumers as part of this. And I know that was one of the things in particular I said that the Community Focus Groups was looking at was being conscious of diversity as part of that work. But of course that's just one small component of health and medical research, and this early stage of the National Strategy too. Thanks, Steve. 

Steve Wesselingh:  

Thanks very much, Natasha. And the next question is actually from the Clinical Trials Network manager from Ramsey Health. And that is, has there been consultation with the private health sector, and how the private sector can support and interact with the National Strategy. Perhaps I'll go to Rosemary for that question. 

Rosemary Huxtable:  

Yeah. Thanks Steve. So I certainly have engaged with some private sector entities and organizations. But I think there's more to do in that regard. 

And yes, the intent of the Strategy very much is to cover, sort of, the whole nation. 

So both public and private sector effort in terms of the research that are being conducted in those settings, but also where the private sector sits in commercialisation and health translation, you know. For example, you know, around promoting a high value care through private health settings, you know, is one of the challenges in that regard. 

So I think there is opportunity to consult more. I mean, as I said, we're in the relatively early stages of the Strategy at this point. And of course when we get to that draft Strategy and being able to begin the more detailed consultation, there will be plenty of opportunity for round tables and the like that focus on particular elements. So please, you know, from private sector people who might be online here, please stay engaged and in touch with the Strategy. You know, there's a written submission process as well, but I am keen to continue those engagements. 

And I mean the same goes for philanthropic organisations, so you know, we've got more to do in terms of engaging with philanthropic organizations, but I think the Strategy certainly intends to hear those voices and, you know, recognise that philanthropy is contributing to health and medical research and may well contribute much more into the future. So you know, we have to make sure that we're not forgetting that sector, and that we're enabling sort of priority setting to have a broader alignment with the philanthropic sector as well. 

Steve Wesselingh: 

Thanks very much. Another question here about how will the Strategy facilitate and encourage the development of impact measures where these don't exist, so we can measure implementation, and I think Rosemary pointed out how important that question is, because if we can't show the impact of what we do, then you know the tax payers who pay for a health and medical research have valid questions to ask. 

And, but it is difficult. We at NHMRC, we have looked at some novel ways of doing that using large language models and AI and advanced bibliometrics etc. But I do think there's still more to be done there, and I know Rosemary thinks it's very important, so I might just see if there's an additional comment from Rosemary there. 

Rosemary Huxtable:  

Well, I think part of it, Steve, is actually gathering up all the evidence around what's being done now because it's a live issue, not just an issue in this country, but in other countries. And certainly I've heard about, you know, different techniques using large language models using AI to seek, to sort of, accelerate the process of reporting on the impact of research to make it, you know, easier, less resource intensive. So I think we need to gather up sort of all this data that's available and look at how we can embed those impact measures into the Strategy. 

And it kind of goes beyond the individual projects. I think it's also sort of asking ourselves questions about, you know, what should we as a community or country sort of expect from our research dollar. You know, I don't know that we've really got a good handle on where/what's an appropriate investment in research and what should we expect from that investment. So actually addressing some of those difficult questions, you know, I think it does drive then confidence, and just the capacity to sort of benchmark our efforts against others. 

You know, it's a good discussion to be having with the community, and for governments to kind of have confidence that we know what the sector’s producing, and you know, where the gaps are, and the benefits that can accrue from filling those gaps. Like, I think, we've got to kind of raise the maturity of that discussion so that it's not just about, you know, more funding, but actually you know, giving a really good sense that we're very much on top of the output from the research dollar that's invested now. I mean, even trying to work out where the research dollars are is pretty hard. So it'd be good to start with that. 

Steve Wesselingh:  

Yes. So there's another question here, will the Strategy consider how to address the lack of time and support that researchers have for commercialisation activities? 

So I do think commercialisation is a really important part that the Strategy is addressing and also obviously in the context of SERD (the Strategic Examination of Research and Development), the two obviously have to come together a bit, well, a lot actually. And one of the things that has come up has been how do we measure, in terms of track record, what someone does when they may work in industry or spend time on commercialisation, where it's a little harder to measure their activities, and to measure their output. So that's an important question and one that we're working on. 

But again, I know Rosemary has thought quite a lot about the fact that we haven't been really great at moving our research into commercial activities and developing products and drugs devices, diagnostics. Rosemary did you want to comment on that? 

Rosemary Huxtable:  

Both the commercialisation issues and the workforce issues are both, have to be, fundamental to the Strategy. I mean, I always go back to kind of what's the evidence. So you know, I want to really engage with what's the evidence around commercialisation, and where the gaps might be. So you know, I think we have to start at that fundamental, but really understanding the capacity to work collaboratively with industry, you know, I think we saw from the survey results, people are distrustful of a sort of private sector model. And yet that is the pathway to effectiveness and one of the pathways to translation and commercialisation. So, you know, I think we've got work to do on that one, but it's definitely front and centre for the Strategy. 

Steve Wesselingh:  

OK. I'm aware of the time and so again I just want to thank everyone for tuning in, and we had a fantastic number of people online and really terrific questions. So thank you very much for that, and we really want you to give us your feedback through the strategic sector survey. And finally, I want to thank Rosemary for a great presentation and terrific response to the questions, and Natasha for introducing the session. So terrific. Thank you very much. Got lots of claps coming on the screen. Not quite sure who they're coming from but very appreciative of those as well. So thank you very much. Thanks everyone. And see you next time.