Natasha Ploenges:
Good morning everyone. Thank you very much for joining us for the third webinar in this series on the National Health and Medical Research Strategy. I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners on whose land we meet today. For me here in Canberra, it's the Ngunnawal and the Ngambri people, I'd like to pay my respects to the elders, past and present, and emerging, and recognise that we are across country as well. For those who haven't met me before, I'm Natasha Ploenges. I'm the Chief Executive Officer for the Health and Medical Research Office, which is in the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.
On behalf of Ms Rosemary Huxtable, Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Strategy, and Professor Steve Wesselingh, CEO of the National Health and Medical Research Council, I thank you all very much for joining us for this webinar today. During the webinar itself, I do ask that you enter any questions via the Q&A function. There is no other sort of chat function available in this webinar itself. We’ll then have the presentation being delivered by Rosemary, and there’ll also be that opportunity of course for Rosemary, Steve and I to answer any questions that you might have.
In terms of some of the scene setting, perhaps for those who haven't made it to webinars one or two with us, you may have already been aware that the Minister for Health, so Minister Butler, had announced a National Health and Medical Research Strategy would be developed later in 2024. Rosemary Huxtable was then announced as the Chair for that Strategy.
So there had been some initial consultation that had been undertaken over the past six months. Rosemary led that consultation, and the development of that draft National Strategy, which was announced by Minister Butler last week.
It really is an exciting time for us to actually see that draft National Strategy being published after it had been taking shape with the feedback that had been provided through those consultations over the last six months or so. What we're really hoping, of course, is that you will see your input and your views are reflected already in that draft National Strategy that has been published.
As I had mentioned, this is the third of that series of public webinars that are being held. So we are really pleased to be able to have this one so close to the release of that draft National Strategy, so that you can indeed be taken through that by Rosemary and as I said have that opportunity for questions and answers at the end.
As Minister Butler himself had noted, in particular he is very much encouraging members of the Australian health and medical research community, and we do mean that as the broadest possible sense of the national health and medical research
community, to review and provide their feedback to Rosemary on that draft Strategy, to make sure that when the final is done, it really does reflect the vision and the priorities for everyone who is involved in health and medical research.
I will also add that this webinar is being recorded and it will be made available as soon as possible on the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s website so that those who were not able to make it to this webinar will be able to watch that recording.
Alternatively, of course, even if you are in this webinar, you might be keen to be able to watch back certain elements to be able to get, catch up on some elements maybe that you might have missed or that you wanted to go through in more depth as well.
Now, I would very much like to hand over to Rosemary Huxtable to provide background and detail on the development of the draft National Strategy. Thank you Rosemary.
Rosemary Huxtable:
Thanks very much, Natasha, and thanks to everyone who's joining us today for this third webinar, as Natasha's pointed out. I've got a number of slides to go through, really to take people through the draft Strategy, which was released last Wednesday, the 27th of August.
It's now been released for public consultation, so I'm very keen to be able to take you through some of the thinking behind the Strategy, how the Strategy is developed from all the input that people have provided to us to date, including those of you who are online, who have responded to the surveys for previous webinars, and to give you a sense of how you can provide your input going forward to this next second phase of consultation.
Just as a reminder about the draft National Strategy and why it is different to previous strategies and why it is unique. And the reason for that is the purpose of the Strategy is to be truly national. So it is not just a Commonwealth Strategy. It is intended to embrace Commonwealth, State and Territory investment in research, the directions that industry and philanthropy take in the health and medical research space. And so that is a different approach. And over that 10-year time frame, certainly the intention is that this is a transformative piece of work.
You'll see from the cover of the National Strategy that we have added the tagline around impactful research, so a very strong focus on quality and excellence in research. ’Healthier Australians’, so the purpose of the health and medical research effort to really improve health outcomes and to improve the resilience and sustainability of the health system.
And ’stronger nation’, to recognise that what occurs in the health and medical research field really impacts on the way in which our society works, the productivity that we're able to generate and the national sort of economic effort as well, both in terms of having a healthy population, but also an educated workforce, you know, one that is engaged in science. So you know we really want to take that much broader view, and that was a very strong message that we got through the consultation phase.
So just to summarise as to why this is different. This Strategy aims to establish clear processes for prioritisation, and take a longer-term view over that 10-year horizon. It looks at the research process, and how to develop optimal research processes and the right balance between the various elements of the research process - that optimal flow between right from discovery right through to commercialisation. And to put in place the key enablers that are so critical in supporting the health and medical research system. As you can see there, across funding, workforce, infrastructure and data. As well as putting in place the right governance and performance measures to enable the Strategy to develop over time, to remain relevant over time, and to be accountable – to show accountability – for the funding that’s being provided.
Just to reflect back, many of you if you’ve participated in previous webinars would have seen a variation of this slide. But I have been undertaking, with the team, quite an extensive consultation process over the last 8 months or so. And through that process a number of issues have been raised, as you can see on the wheel – I won’t go through these in detail, but these are the inputs to the Strategy we have developed. And we’ve sort to address every one of these issues that were so important in the consultation that occurred leading up to the draft being released. So that’s just a reminder and you’ll see that this is in the draft Strategy which has been released.
In terms of how we’ve got to this place, there has been a range of consultation conducted in part of phase 1. You can see the various elements of that, and many of you would have participated in some of those through the previous webinars and the surveys that we’ve conducted. That’s been across, you know, really from when I started, it was around December, the team was working prior to that and did the work on the Workforce Audit prior to that, so we’re coming up for 10 months of this consultation phase to date. There’s been a range of commissioned work that’s been undertaken as well, and the results of that work has largely been released, but that's got us to the point where we are today - able to now move into phase two consultation.
And the purpose of phase two consultation is really to take this draft Strategy that I'll present shortly and to enable feedback, whether through written submissions, there’ll be a series of state and territory roundtables that have a range of participants in each state and territory, these webinars, and then at the end of that process of doing submissions and roundtables, we’ll determine whether and to what extent we will do some additional thematic workshops, to really dive into the issues that have come up through consultation, where we feel that we need to get the experts together to go into more depth around the issues that are being raised. So its hard to know at this stage what areas will be subject for thematic workshops, but we’ll certainly be coming to a view about that as the first phase of this next consultation process is completed.
And I would just say just reflecting on the process to date, I feel that everyone who I've engaged with has engaged very positively. They have been very welcome and supportive of the fact that there is a National Strategy under development. But more than that, they have not just brought their, sort of, reflections on what doesn’t work as well as it could in the sector, but also the things that have worked well, and have really come with solutions. And I think you’ll find as I go through the Strategy that the solutions are reflected in the work that’s been done, and I see this Strategy very much one of the sector, you know, rather than one that is, sort of, imposed on the sector. And I'm quite confident that in the next phase of consultation that that approach will continue, and we’ll continue to see this very positive level of engagement we’ve seen to date.
So I mentioned before the written submissions. So I see the written submissions as probably the foundation of now phase 2 consultation. The benefit of a written submission is that people can very clearly express their views about what the document, you know, the document that's been released. So what's in front of them. They can express them in the way that they want to express them – there’s no opportunity for mis-interpretation, when sometimes you hear things face to face you might not quite understand what’s being put in front of you. So it will very clear as to what people’s views are.
And we also want to hear those views in whatever form is going to be most meaningful to you. So whether it’s a written submission. Whether it’s a short email response, whether it’s a video. Any of those forms we’re very happy to receive in terms of the written submission phase. We’ve allowed 6 weeks for this phase, so it’ll close at the end of the first week in October. And as I said, I think it’s the absolute foundation for phase 2 consultation.
I won’t go through these questions here in detail, but these are basically the questions that we’re asking people to consider when they look at the Strategy – what their views are about each element of the Strategy, whether they’d suggest there’d be an alternate way to address that issue, whether there are any gaps or areas that haven’t been identified that should be identified. And also to set the Strategy in that broader context, about what it would mean for your organisation, or your community, or you as an individual. Whether you consider there are broader issues that haven't been adequately addressed, and also putting forward ideas for best practice case studies, projects, that would be useful in the final document. And you will see in the Strategy that there are a range of case studies that have been provided already. So the purpose of those has been to really, I guess, elucidate what we are talking about in case it needs any greater clarity, give an example of where this may have worked in a domestic setting, or where it may have worked in an international setting. Just to give that broader context.
So just the next slide thanks Steph. Might have hit a slide snag perhaps.
Yes. So I'm moving on to the Strategy itself. So this is basically the overarching architecture for the Strategy. And as you will see, it has a vision statement. The vision statement is ‘Australia: the healthiest nation – driven by research, delivering for all’.
The sense of the healthiest nation, we wanted this vision to be bold, to aspire, to provide a hook where you could actually measure progress. I think it’s fair to say that some might see this as too bold, and we understand that in saying the healthiest nation that there are a range of entrenched inequities or other issues that really detract from our ability to achieve that goal. So we’re interested in consultation what people’s views are about that element of the vision.
We really want to ground this obviously in research. This is a research strategy at the end of the day. But also bring in that sense of equity - ‘delivering for all’. So that’s all communities, all geographies, for all conditions that people may experience in the system. So that sort of gives you a sense of what has driven the vision.
I will go through these in more detail, but the elements of the strategy that we lay out here – the values and enablers on each side – basically reflect that the values and enablers sort of cover all the activity that we do as part of the Strategy. The values need to drive our actions, they will be very important in implementation, and will also be very important in providing sort of guideposts as we deliver the Strategy. The enablers provide foundational tools that we need to be able to deliver across action areas.
I’ll just go into a bit more detail about each of these but also at the bottom you see there, there is reference to a National Strategy Advisory Council. That is the governance proposal that we have as to how you would continue to ensure that the Strategy is delivered. The stewards of the Strategy if you like who would receive data, be able to map trends, and bring together the right parties who will be so critical to ensuring that the Strategy stays on track.
And the metrics are really the performance measures around how do we know that progress is being made, that we’re on the right pathway, whether additional actions are needed because we’re not seeing traction we need in certain elements.
So that’s just to give you an overview. I think it’s always important with strategies to have a kind of plan on the page where you can see it in one place, but obviously the document that has been released has got a lot more detail in respect of every element of this. So I’ll just move on to the next slide please.
So these set out the goals and the values in a bit more detail. So just looking at the goals, we really wanted to ground this strategy around national prosperity, and security. So it includes consideration of sovereign capability and where that is required. The sort of productivity lens, in terms of the outputs of health and medical research. So that kind of investment to build national prosperity is a key goal.
I would say that we’ve had some feedback that actually numbering goals suggests that they’re in a priority order but that’s not the case. We might be looking at that when we look at the final, but these goals they kind of, they’re all equal, but this is the order in which we developed them.
Leading the world in health outcomes links back to that. You know the healthiest nation and how we do that, informed by research, basically driven by research. There are metrics that will enable us to measure our progress in that regard and we are well advanced in some of those metrics. While it is bold and aspirational, it is not beyond our capacity.
Delivering equity – we’ve really stressed equity throughout this Strategy, both in terms of health conditions, demography, geography, so how you ensure that everyone benefits from health and medical research.
The link to the health system, and how to create a cost- effective and sustainable health system, really goes to the translation piece in particular. And then finally, strengthening regional and global partnerships, we wanted to ground this Strategy in how Australia operates in an international research community. So not wanting to be inward looking, by talking about sovereign capability, not suggesting we need to look inward, but recognising that we have a critical role as an international partner, that we can benefit from that, but we also contribute to that, and we have a specific set of responsibilities in our region. So they are the goals we’d set out for the Strategy. The values, as I said, need to underpin all the actions that we take, but the values that we’re focused on are around impact and sustainability. So what we’re doing is having an impact, and we’re doing it in a way that is sustainable.
Quality and integrity. We're very focused here around that question of public trust, and trust in science. We draw out some of that in the Strategy in more detail, so a focus on the integrity of the process, ethical conduct of research, and the like.
Equity again, as I said earlier, we’ve stressed that in a number of areas of the Strategy so it comes through also as a value. And also equity within the research system, you know, so that we’re also looking at how do we embrace diversity and be inclusive in the research system itself, including how we promote a diverse and distributed workforce.
And then finally focusing on collaboration and partnership in everything that we do so that we get maximum impact for the community.
So moving now to the Focus Areas. So we’ve mapped out five Focus Areas. Again, numbered, but not necessarily in order of importance. I think there is a natural flow, though, from one to five. And you’ll see from the document if you’ve had the opportunity to look at it, that for each of these Focus Areas, we provide quite a lot of detail about the actions associated with the Focus Area. And there's a choice point in strategies such as this as to whether you keep it relatively, you know high level and then you allow a lot of the detail work to occur through implementation.
Or whether you provide more sort of action-oriented strategy. And, you know, coming out of all the consultation that was done through Phase one, it was pretty clear to me that people were looking for an action-oriented strategy. And so at the end of the day, we have set out in the, across the Focus Areas, 16 key actions. You know some of those actions are quite broad and will require quite a lot of sort of detailed development or the tools aren't yet available and will need to be developed.
But I thought it was very important to give people a sense of really what we're talking about here and being, you know, relatively specific. So each in the Strategy itself, each of these individual actions that we see here has their own, sort of, page that sets out what's proposed, what could be achieved, why we're undertaking this action and also provide some case studies to give, you know, an exemplar, whether domestic or international, as I've said earlier, about an action that we've laid out.
So in terms of, so I would encourage you to obviously go to the Strategy to see all the detail in that regard (I might just turn my sound off on the computer, so we don't hear all the questions coming through). So the first of the Focus Areas really looks at the vibrant research system that delivers for the nation. So this looks at the sort of totality of the health and medical research system and how it operates at a strategic level. We heard a lot about the need to better coordinate priorities and investment strategies.
That while elements of the system were relatively coordinated, others were really not coordinated very much at all. And remember, here we're talking about that breadth across Commonwealth, states and territories, industry, philanthropy. So a much bigger sort of priority setting discussion needs to occur, underpinned by the data that you would need to establish priorities. Another action goes to horizon scanning. You know to how we prepare the health system for the challenges of the future, how we sort of look forward to that and ensure that everything that we're doing in the health and medical research space right back to you know workforce and the infrastructure that we have in place, is able to respond to future challenges that we're seeing coming down the pipe. And the third is about really focusing on collaborations and networks, collaborative platforms and networks.
So looking to invest a little bit differently, having a bit of a different balance between the various elements of the research system so that we are focusing on sort of larger scale platform-based development that might cross institutions, cross geographies, and the like. Now there's development work to be done across each of these things, obviously. And as we move into phase two consultation and a final document, you know followed by implementation work, you know those will be developed in more detail.
The second area is around the research processes and making sure that they're modern, efficient and consumer centred and there's several actions in this area. One of them mirrors some recommendations that have been made previously about unifying the management of the Medical Research Endowment Account and the Medical Research Future Fund, to basically ensure better, more strategic and better coordinated investment. That doesn't mean that these, sort of, funds would be, sort of, merged or become as one in terms of their priority setting. They would still have, you know, different perspectives that they needed to take, but it would be under a unified management which would enable that greater strategic coordinated approach. Enabling a vibrant clinical trial sector, you know, critically important and how you get equitable access to clinical trials, you know again, a big focus in rural and remote areas. How we have research processes that are truly reflective of consumer and community involvement, and finally a focus on regional, rural and remote research. And as I said, the Strategy itself sets out a sort of, page for each of these areas to give more detail about what is proposed for each.
There's a Focus Area that specifically focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and well-being, it does, sort of, raise the importance of closing the gap and implementing research outcomes that address the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. But it goes further than that.
Really, how do we design research processes that are community-led and place based? I think there was a lot of information given to me that we know what works, you know, there's a great deal of research that's undertaken or has been undertaken. But the real challenge is about translating that into action and taking it to scale. So looking at the ways in which that can occur. And then finally building on the strength of the existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research workforce, but continuing to build capability and capacity through that stream, including a focus on community-based researchers who may have come up through non-traditional pathways.
Now the fourth Focus Area is really around the whole question of translation, commercialisation, industry engagement. There's a lot in this Focus Area and there's a, sort of, range of actions that are associated with it.
We understand that the translation process or translation into healthcare settings and commercialisation are kind of, they’re different parts of a problem I suppose, and they need different and unique solutions. And we've mapped out within the Strategy some of the solutions that have been put to us in terms of how we can do better in terms of translation and industry integration and risk sharing and also some of the barriers to commercialisation and how to address those. And then the final Focus Area is around being ready for future needs and challenges.
So this includes a focus on emerging technology, what the opportunities are through emerging technology, including the use of AI. And you know, we've already heard in one of the earlier meetings that we've done on the Strategy, you know, how transformative AI is likely to be for the research system and so how we kind of get ahead of that and understand it. The second action is around environmental sustainability, so ensuring both the climate is key factor in priority setting, but also that our research processes are promoting sustainability.
And finally, global partnerships or how we build those strategic collaborations with a particular focus on the Indo-Pacific region, so our new neighbours.
So that that covers the Focus Areas. I mean in the document itself as you will see, there's a lot of sort of detailed discussion about the various Focus Areas and individual actions, so you'll be able to supplement what I've said here today by looking at the Strategy itself.
And then similarly with the Enablers as I mentioned earlier, we see these as sort of foundation elements of the Strategy. Each have their own series of actions. I'll just go through them quickly, but you'll see again in the document that we provide more information on these. The first is around workforce and we're really looking here to develop a Australian Health and Medical Research Workforce Plan. It's sort of lacking in the current system. There's, you know, many elements that a research workforce plan would need to cover. And we've just put some of them down here on the slide. But you know, how we prepare for the future, how we create training and development pathways, how we improve alignment between workforce needs, the current and future workforce needs of the sector and how we improve workforce diversity and security in the way in which the research process is conducted. So you know a range of important and quite urgent work to do in that space.
On funding, the strategy calls for a National Health and Medical Research Resourcing Statement, basically a mapping of what funding goes into the research system. We did do some work on this in Phase one, but it proved to be very difficult to do apples to apples comparisons about funding that was going into the sector. So there's a range of information that's available through budget papers and the like, but often it's not on a comparable basis. It doesn't cover the same years. So really, unless we understand sort of the funding system better and how funding matches to priorities, it's very hard to get your priority setting working across the nation. So you know there's an element of work to do there and also work around funding models and different funding models.
On data, we see this as a cross-system sort of set of challenges and one that requires again, you know better mapping of data and digital assets, developing a workforce that has the skills and capabilities to sort of use these assets and how we promote and better support data literacy in the broader community as well. It was certainly put to me that there is a great untapped, sort of, source of information that there is a reluctance on the part of institutions or individuals to allow that data to be used. And with AI, there will be ways to interrogate data that can make the research process much more, sort of, sustainable and effective. And again, coming back to AI and how AI can be used.
And then the final area is infrastructure and you know mapping the health and medical research infrastructure to enable better national coordination of the research infrastructure system, to better coordinate and develop that infrastructure and nationally, to better collaborate with industry and to really be fit for purpose for the future, in terms of how research infrastructure is built and operates.
So between the 15 Focus Area actions and these actions in the Enablers, I guess that's the weight of the Strategy, you know, where all the detail sits. So I'd encourage you to look at that and read that in more detail including engaging with the case studies.
I talked earlier about the National Strategy Advisory Council, so the intention is to have a governance sort of layer that sits across the Strategy, that sort of holds actions to account, but also manages and receives some of the information through the tools that we've talked about developing, whether it's cross funding, workforce, infrastructure or data planning. So the idea of the governance, I think we'll work through more leading up to the final Strategy being announced.
And then the measuring success of the Strategy, again, as I said earlier, it will be very important to have metrics, performance measures that are developed for every element of the Strategy and there will be over a short, medium and long-term framing, and we'll be looking to begin that work certainly leading up to the final Strategy being released. And it will be very important in the implementation phase and also to support a kind of agile Strategy going forward. So one that can be responding to future challenges.
So just in terms of the where to from here. So we're obviously this sort of beginning of September submissions are open, we've got six weeks for those. As I said, I'm about to begin a series of roundtables starting tomorrow over the next few weeks. And then we'll consider what thematic workshops we require. We'll do another webinar as we've coming through the consultation phase and before we have the final Strategy. And obviously the rest of the year, we'll also be looking at bringing together all the input that we've got and developing that final Strategy for government consideration, which we're intending to have done by the end of this this year.
So just a bit of a reminder, you can provide feedback through the consultation hub. You can go to the website and obviously send any questions through to the team. But I would really encourage you to be involved in the written submission phases. You know that's going to be a critical foundation. You know, I hope that the Strategy, because it's got quite a lot of detail, that it will really trigger, I guess a response people really do understand. I hope where we're coming from, what actions we're proposing. And so I expect that this next phase will be quite a rich one in terms of the feedback that we receive.
So I think I'm going to hand to Steve now to just manage this next little bit of the process. Thanks Steve.
Steve Wesselingh:
Thanks very much. Thanks very much, Rosemary, terrific presentation and I really want to congratulate Rosemary on the way she's chaired this process and the enormous amount of work that she's done, the enormous amount of listening that Rosemary's done and develop this draft Strategy with so much information and so much opportunity for everyone to have some input into so. Thank you. Thank you very much, Rosemary. It's been a terrific process. We do have quite a lot of questions.
And so the first one is the changes occurring in the US with regard to medical research are very concerning. What impact will these changes have in Australia in regard to current and future research projects and also research funding?
So I guess I'll perhaps talk to that one, particularly in terms of how those events, those geopolitical events, have impacted on the process that we put in place to write the Strategy. And I think there's no doubt that the geopolitical environment has impacted on the Strategy and I think issues like sovereign capability have been really important. In addition, I think and Rosemary highlighted it, a view that Australia needs to provide and does provide a leadership particularly in the region. But across the world in terms of our bilateral and multilateral arrangements with Europe, the UK, Asia and so on. So I think those geopolitical events that were occurring, while we were writing the draft Strategy absolutely impacted on the way the Strategy is constructed and the role of Australia in the international environment.
And also the importance of Australia providing leadership and having true sovereign capability.
The next question was what about in terms of our development of our overarching Council and so on. How does that interact with the SERD process? And the fact that SERD may well advise on a similar sort of governance process. So maybe I'll go to Rosemary with that question and I guess just to comment generally on how we've been working with SERD as well.
Rosemary Huxtable:
Yeah. Thanks, Steve. So, yes, we've been working closely with the SERD panel - both with the panel, but also at the secretariat level. So I've had, I've met with the chair of the SERD panel, Robyn Denholm. I've attended one of their meetings and in fact, I've attended two of their meetings, presented on the National Strategy, but also engaged on their issues papers. I think it's fair to say that there's areas where there will be good alignment, and we're very conscious that we're both working in a similar space at a similar time. So it's important that we, you know, seek to sort of coordinate and collaborate as much as we can. You know some of the issues, in particular around governance and if we propose, you know, we propose our Strategic Advisory Governance Council, how might that interact with any governance that SERD, the SERD panel recommends. And look, I think we can very easily navigate through those issues, so you know I'm confident that we're, you know, working very closely. I know SERD's very interested in the work that we've done, and whether the work that we've done really forms a kind of health pillar of activity for their final report and recommendation. And also we've committed to doing some joint consultation with the sector. We're kind of very conscious that we've been out consulting at the same time and it might not always appear, you know, like we're working together, but I can assure you that we are and that we will engage jointly with the sector at the right time, you know, as we kind of get through our beginnings of Phase two consultation and they're working through their Issues Paper process right now.
Steve Wesselingh:
Thanks. Thanks very much, Rosemary. The next question I'm going to go to Natasha for and this really looks at the issue that around the federal government. There are nine different federal government departments portfolios that touch on our sector in different ways. What mechanisms will be put in place to ensure cross-government
buy-in to the Strategy, Natasha.
Natasha Ploenges:
Excellent. Thank you very much for that, Steve. So it is really intended and proposed to be able to do that in a range of ways through the draft National Strategy. As Rosemary had talked about the draft Strategy points to establishing an Advisory Council. So that is about having an Advisory Council, perhaps that can work with and be made up of a range of stakeholders in that space. So it's not just a Commonwealth or state and territory led group. Having that sort of cross-sectoral group can help to build in, and make sure that there is, that connection and that real importance placed on all of the players, including all of the Commonwealth players in this space. With that there would also be the potential to have that Advisory Council of course work up and through some of the existing mechanisms that also exist in the Commonwealth, including, sort of, ministers and working across those ministers meetings. Rosemary, I will also say also had reflected, of course, on her connection with the SERD panel. That is being managed of course, and led as well, through the Department of Industry. But that's not the only connection that is also being had when it comes to not only the development of the draft Strategy as it is today. So it has included, and there had been discussions with a range of other health and medical research, or research and development and infrastructure teams as well across the Commonwealth, and that will continue as well throughout this time period, which is that shift from having the draft Strategy out to it being finalised and absolutely through into the implementation phase as well. It is really recognised that health and medical research strategy does not simply stop in the health space. It does go across multiple departments and organisations and we're working hard to make sure that there is that connection as well. Thanks, Steve.
Steve Wesselingh:
Thanks, Natasha. The next question is about the NHMRC/Consumer Health Forum draft Statement on Consumer and Community Involvement, and whether that's informed the Strategy. And perhaps I'll answer that question because it absolutely has. That process has been going on in parallel, and we're still, we're now at the second stage of that process and consultation is occurring and we're getting lots of feedback on the consumer statement. And that feedback is being utilised in the development of this Strategy as well. So we can say that if you feedback to the Consumer and Community Statement, you're also feeding back into the Strategy. So that process, that is clearly linked up.
Links quite sort of to that question. There's another question which I'll read out ‘Written submissions and other formal processes work well for large organisations that are well resourced, but not so easy to engage with citizens or small community organisations. What supports and processes are available to ensure the community's views are represented equitably’. So maybe I'll start with Rosemary and then she may flick to either myself or Natasha.
Rosemary Huxtable:
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for that question. So we are while we talk about a written submission phase, as I said earlier, we are keen to receive information in whatever way that people sort of wish to provide it to us. So, you know, we're quite agnostic as to how you know, whether it's a formal submission, that's, you know 10 pages or whether it's an e-mail or whether someone wants to jump online and do a video that just sort of gives their first impressions on the Strategy. So we want to be quite sort of broad based in that regard. I mean reaching, kind of, the individual citizen, I guess can be challenging. We did do a series of Community Focus Groups as part of phase one consultation. They were, you know, qualitative work. It was a good representative sample and the advice was that it was sort of the numbers that would drive results that were reliable results, and we've certainly looked at the input from those Community Focus Groups as part of developing the National Strategy.
And you know, I'm continuing to go around. The state and territory workshops that I'm doing are not just state and territory officials. They're much more broadly based than that. So I think we will be getting you know, a variety of organisations and individuals who participate also at that stage. And as I said, I think when we get to the end of this process, there is the opportunity to then really consider where there might be gaps that we need to fill and how we can go about filling those gaps. So Natasha, I don't know if you want to add anything, but you know my hope is that we can be as sort of open as possible to getting information in a variety of ways.
Natasha Ploenges:
Yeah. Thanks very much for that Rosemary. I think you really did cover it, including talking about those consumer and community focus groups that were held at the start, and the variety of ways that the draft National Strategy will be able to be commented on by individuals and small organisations.
I guess the other thing I'd probably like to add is that between my office and the NHMRC, we also have a series of joint independent expert advisory groups as well. And one of those is the Consumer Advisory Group. So that is also another mechanism that people can use if they want to not only share particular views which will come through to Steve and I. But Rosemary will also meet with the Consumer Advisory Group as well. And that that's another great way to be able to also receive those additional thoughts and views, but get that really consumer and community lens on it. Thank you.
Steve Wesselingh:
Thanks a lot Natasha and Rosemary. The next question was ‘how does the Strategy interact with the National Research Infrastructure Roadmap?’ And I think importantly, when we were writing the Strategy, we thought a lot about NCRIS and the role that NCRIS plays in research in Australia. And it plays a really, really important role, but sometimes those things aren't all connected and so I think probably the key point that I want to make about NCRIS and the Strategy is we acknowledge the importance of infrastructure, we acknowledge the importance of infrastructure at scale and we acknowledge really how important it is to make sure that the NCRIS process and the health and medical research strategy are absolutely linked so that we're getting the right infrastructure in the right place at the right scale. So that those things have absolutely been being thought about.
The next one which actually starts with ‘Can you please ask Rosemary to answer this question’ so I'm absolutely going to make sure Rosemary does. It says ‘Can Rosemary comment on the role of fundamental discovery research in the new Strategy?’
Rosemary Huxtable:
Thanks. Thanks Steve. Well, yes and no. I mean I think that the key message to get across to people and to give comfort is that you know, fundamental discovery research is a foundation of the research system, and continues to be a foundation of the research system. And the fact that we talk about, you know, priority setting and the importance of priority setting doesn't mean that fundamental discovery, research and investigator initiated research doesn't continue to be sort of foundational in our research system. I think that we have to go through the priority setting process to really understand what the balance should be between various elements of the process. So partly that goes to what's the balance between, you know, investigator initiated and priority driven research, but it's also to better understand across the whole sort of research ecosystem where investment goes, is it in the right place at the right time? And then within individual elements, does it have the right depth? You know, right now I don't feel having been through this process that we really have the tools to understand that at a national level. So you know, it's good that there's a 10-year Strategy because you know there needs to be development of some of these tools to inform the priority setting process, and to inform what the right balance should be now, but also in the future and how we should be adjusting that balance over time. So hopefully that puts to bed any discomfort that people might have by saying the word priority setting. You know it means that there isn't, or by saying you know translation/commercialisation, that we're not focused on sort of the fundamental discovery research. That's certainly you know not the case. But as I said, I think we need a lot more information to better inform our sort of research processes, the balance of investment going forward.
Steve Wesselingh:
Thanks Rosemary. I might give the next one to you as well. It's ‘from your listening, can you give us some examples of the pain points you heard from stakeholders?’
Rosemary Huxtable:
Yep, sure. And early on in the presentation, I had that wheel up about you know, which reflected on the issues that I heard during consultation and really within those issues are the pain points. So this is in the final Strategy document that's been released. So you can look at that in your own time. But you know, just to pull out a few of those, a lack of coordination, you know, was certainly a pain point, a kind of feeling that research organisations need to engage with a whole range of potential sort of funders, or funding entities across a range of issues, that resulted in, you know, a lot of busy work that did that seemed unnecessary where, you know, perhaps if there were better coordination at the beginning point, then you know it wouldn't be such a clunky system.
That there was risk in that, that there was duplication and evidence of duplication in some areas, but also evidence of gaps in other areas, and there didn't seem to be sort of an overarching approach to make sure that priority setting was coordinated and everyone was clear about what their role in the system was, and how they worked with other elements of the system. So that was a criticism, I guess certainly of the Commonwealth and you know, Natasha talked about the various entities across the Commonwealth that engage in this space, but also between the Commonwealth and the states. And you know, with the industry and with other funders in the system.
There was concern expressed around the sustainability of research organisations so that, you know, went across a range of issues. The indirect cost issue, which we call out in the Strategy. The way in which research processes work, you know how you can be eligible for some and not others, and there's, you know, certain sort of caps or barriers that are that many would see as not conducive to having an optimal research process.
The translation piece and kind of frustration around the work that's done that kind of doesn't go anywhere or is very successful as a pilot, but doesn't get to scale and a feeling that we're not sort of taking full advantage of the information that's available in the way in which the health system itself is structured and operates, and whether the incentives are there to be innovative and to really think through, I guess right from the beginning of a process what it will mean to take an idea to scale.
In terms of the workforce, there was a range of frustrations around how the workforce is engaged. You know, a lot of members of the workforce are spending a lot of time writing grant applications, you know, are there better ways to manage the grant process that doesn't focus so much on individual competitive grants. And understanding, you know that also as a driver for losing early to mid-career researchers who you know don't have necessarily the sort of satisfaction through that process and how we, you know, go about making the, making career pathways better, the experience better, building industry exchange and looking at the diversity and equity across the research workforce.
I mean, I've just so I could go on. But I've just picked out a few there, but if you go to that wheel, which is in the draft Strategy, you can see there's a lot more information there. And while you know those issues are reflected, you know, in a very abbreviated way, you know, I think you can quickly see what's sits behind them in terms of what I heard during consultation.
Steve Wesselingh:
Thanks. Thanks, Rosemary. We've only got a few minutes to go and there's a lot more questions. So the interaction has been fantastic. So thanks everyone. We won't be able to answer all your questions, but we have got them all documented. I just want to give Rosemary one last question, but it has to be brief, Rosemary, because we have to wrap up. But I think it's a really important one and that is ‘how we're going to make sure or are we concerned about state governments, the involvement of state governments in the Strategy, the involvement of healthcare delivery, which is largely state government particularly at the tertiary level’. So would you just like to comment on that a little bit because I do think that's a really critical issue.
Rosemary Huxtable:
Yeah. Agree. And we're doing a State/Territory Working Group actually this afternoon. So we've been working with the states. I've been to Health Chief Executives Forum you know which is the Commonwealth, state and territory body and we'll continue to work with the states. I'm going around and doing those state and territory workshops. You know, I'm very conscious that many states and territories have their own health and medical research strategies, and there's very strong alignment across, you know, many of the issues that we're raising in those state strategies. So you know, that will be a very critical part of the governance.
And I can assure you that we certainly see the importance of that and in all the engagement I've had to date with state and territory governments, they also, you know, are really looking for a more national approach.
Steve Wesselingh:
Thanks Rosemary. I'm going to have to wrap up now and I apologise to those peoples who we couldn't get to your questions. But as I said, we've got them all documented. I'd like to thank everyone who's come on to the webinar. Fantastic involvement. I'd like to thank everyone who has been involved in helping us with this Strategy over the last six months or so. Really like to acknowledge the staff at NHMRC and HMRO who've been working on the Strategy led by Natasha. I mean, it's just been fantastic and so much great work has been done. Finally, I want to acknowledge Rosemary chairing this process. I'm sure it's been a lot more than she had thought when she took it on, but she's done such a good job and got us to such a great place at the moment. And the next six months or actually not the next six months, the next three to four months are really important, so I really want to encourage you to be engaged and help us finalise this Strategy. Which could have such an important impact on health and medical research. And finally, the health of the country going forward. So thank you very much.