October 29, 2025
Health and Medical Research Strategy Secretariat
The Go8 consents to the publication of this submission and has no wish for any of it to be treated as confidential. Go8 members may make their own, more detailed, submission.
Introduction
Health and Medical Research (HMR) undertaken in Australia’s universities and medical research institutes forms the foundation of the nation’s entire health ecosystem and underpins the wellbeing of all Australians. This research effort is powered not only by traditional health disciplines but also by contributions from engineering, economics, mathematics and statistics, humanities, arts and social sciences. Together, these disciplines generate new ideas and cultivate a highly skilled research workforce that drives innovation in health delivery.
At the core of this national effort are the members of the Group of Eight (Go8), which collectively undertakes 70 per cent of all university research in Australia. This includes more than $3.2 billion annually invested in health and medical research, as part of a broader $8.5 billion investment – accounting for over 20 per cent of Australia’s total R&D investment. This effort includes graduating 900 PhDs in health disciplines in 2023 and many more across related disciplines in science, engineering, humanities, arts and social sciences. This is the next generation of the HMR workforce that will undertake cutting edge research and build collaborations around the globe for the betterment of the health of the Australian community.
Go8 institutions are also the drivers of Australia’s health workforce, producing over 17,000 health graduates in 2024. This includes 60 per cent of the nation’s doctors and dentists. These professionals are educated in research intensive environment, enabling them to apply a research perspective throughout Australia’s health system. This integration of research and practice is essential to realising the vision outlined in the Draft Strategy: Australia: the healthiest nation – driven by research, delivering for all.
The Go8 supports this vision, values, goals and much of the proposed activity. However, we believe there are several framing elements which, if added, would greatly enhance the final Strategy.
Strategy without execution is said to be just an hallucination. The 10-year Draft Strategy cannot be executed without sufficient funding. The current funding arrangements for HMR makes this a structural and strategic issue rather than a matter of budget decisions once the strategy has been finalised. The Draft Strategy does not address the chronic underfunding of indirect research costs, nor the significant cross-subsidisation of NHMRC and MRFF programs by universities and medical research institutes. Without this cross-subsidy these national programs as currently configured would collapse.
Additionally, there is no commitment through the Draft Strategy to invest the full amount available through the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) – which left some $400 million unallocated this financial year alone.
Nothing comes from nothing, and in the case of research driven health outcomes these come from a foundation of basic research. Quarantined funding for basic research must be a key pillar of the Draft Strategy.
Finally, for the Draft Strategy to be successful it cannot be siloed away from the national R&D effort and a national strategy for R&D. The future impact of AI and digital technologies on health outcomes is unpredictable, but their potential is immense. Realising this potential will require multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research that spans both health and non-health disciplines.
Go8 universities are uniquely positioned to bridge these systems, and this integrative approach is essential for a truly national strategy.
While the Strategic Examination of Research and Development (SERD) is reviewing the national R&D system, the Draft Strategy must also articulate how it will engage with and contribute to this broader framework.
A post hoc reconciliation of the SERD and National HMR Strategy processes will fall short of delivering the coordinated, high impact research system Australia needs to improve the health outcomes of all.[1]
| Recommendations In making these recommendations the Go8 endorses the proposed key HMR system enablers from the Draft Strategy of Workforce, Funding, Data and Advanced Technology, and Infrastructure. 1: Embed Research at the core of Australia’s health system Recommendation: Ensure research is fully integrated throughout the entire health system and underpinned by sustainable, long-term funding, including support for the workforce that delivers this research. This must include explicit and ongoing support for basic research, which is foundational to innovation and long-term health outcomes. A critical step is to unlock and allocate the more than $400 million in unspent Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) resources in 2025-26. Recommendation 2: Safeguard basic research and eliminate inefficient cross-subsidies in the HMR system. Transition the HMR system toward financial sustainability by:
Support a differentiated model for HMR delivery that enables institutions to define their mission, scale and focus. This model should be:
Establish a clear national understanding of the ideal HMR workforce – its size, structure and capabilities – by:
Recommendation 5: Establish a Central R&D Coordination Body Create a single overarching Australian government agency for research and innovation. This agency should:
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Discussion
Recommendation 1: Embed Research at the heart of Australia’s health system
If the Draft Strategy is to be successful in its aspiration of seeing research delivering the healthiest nation, then research must be integrated into all parts of the health system. This will require support by transparent and sustainable systems of funding.
In the health portfolio the entire range of research activities comes to bear on the health of the nation. Whether it is the basic research undertaken in the laboratory that one day leads to a lifesaving treatment or vaccine, or policy development, health economics, medical technologies or indeed system design thinking applied to the operation of the health system. These research efforts translate into real world impact through translational research, the application of implementation science – the study of how to systematically integrate research findings and other evidence-based practices into real-world settings, commercialisation, startups and spinouts, and clinical research applied directly to patient care.
This research ecosystem – from discovery to impact – relies on a research workforce that is fully integrated into the health system. While universities and medical research institutes are the primary engines of basic HMR in Australia, their impact is potentially cruelled if the broader health system does not support research being carried out and implemented in clinical and community settings – from hospitals to primary care.
It is also important that non-research staff across the health system understand and value research to ensure integration of research into the system. Go8 universities ensure that all health graduates are educated in research-intensive environments, equipping them to support and apply research throughout their careers.
This must be backed up by sustainable funding – which is desperately in need. Immediate action is required—specifically, the release of unspent funds from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF)—to prevent critical, life-saving research from stalling while the Strategy is finalised and implemented.
In the 2025-26 Budget (delivered on 25 March 2025) the Government allocated $650 million in MRFF funding – over $400 million less than had been authorised by the Future Fund Board of Guardians in their Maximum Annual Distribution Amount (MADA) for 2025-26 which was $1.055 billion.[2]
The continued capping of MRFF disbursements at $650 million under the MRFF will see a cut in real terms of 12 per cent to research funding through to the end of the current Federal Budget forwards estimates in 2028-29 while the fund itself increases to nearly $27 billion over that period.
Parliamentary Budget Office modelling shows that if annual disbursements remain capped at $650 million, the MRFF will grow to $35.4 billion by 2035-36. [3]
Holding back this funding is the very definition of a false economy, for while spending on health and medical research can be deferred, the negative health impacts on the Australian community that the unfunded research could have alleviated cannot be deferred.
Recommendation 2: Safeguard basic research and eliminate inefficient cross-subsidies.
Australia’s health and medical research system is built on a foundation of basic and discovery research – primarily supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and in part by the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF). The majority of this research is delivered by Go8 members who are forced to significantly cross-subsidise both the direct and indirect costs of this work using discretionary, non-government revenue. [4]
In dollar terms (as noted above) the Go8 invested $3.2 billion on health research in 2022 (latest available figures). Of this, only $800 million came from the NHMRC and MRFF. The remainder was largely underwritten by international student fee revenue – a volatile and unsustainable funding base.[5]
Despite this reality, the Draft Strategy fails to acknowledge these funding nuances. It references the AIHW’s Health expenditure Australia 2022– 23 report, which estimates $5.8 billion in HMR expenditure from the Australian Government, $1.1 billion from state and territory governments, and $0.5 billion from the non-government sector – but omits any reference to university investments, which are substantial.
The Science, Research and Innovation (SRI) budget tables produced annually by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources report the actual Government investment in research in the Socio-Economic Objective of Health as $2.4 billion.[6]
Meanwhile, the 2022 ABS Higher Education R&D (HERD) survey shows that approximately 50 per cent of university R&D expenditure is sourced from discretionary revenue—again, predominantly international student fees.
It is no exaggeration to say that the NHMRC grants programs and much of the MRFF grants as currently configured would collapse without this cross-subsidisation. These are the financial facts underpinning Australia’s HMR system, and they must be addressed in any credible 10-year strategy.
The Strategy must commit to reducing reliance on cross-subsidies—both the overdependence on international student revenue and the use of research block grants from the education portfolio to cover indirect research costs. If research is commissioned through the health portfolio, then the full economic cost (FEC) of that research must be funded by the health portfolio. Anything less undermines the sustainability and integrity of the national research system.
Recommendation 3: Encourage Diversity and Specialisation in institutions
Australia’s HMR system must support a diversity of missions, scales, and focus areas among universities and other research institutions. Funding and policy settings should actively encourage specialisation based on excellence and alignment with national priorities and sovereign capability needs.
The Go8 strongly supports this direction. A more targeted and differentiated research landscape will enable deeper collaboration across the full spectrum of research—from basic discovery to applied and industry-specific innovation—at every stage of the knowledge generation lifecycle.
Specialisation must be driven by excellence, not uniformity. Institutions should be empowered to lead in areas where they have demonstrated strength and strategic alignment. For universities, achieving this may require changes to the Higher Education Research Threshold Standards to allow some institutions to focus on a narrower, but higher-quality, research profile.
Recommendation 4: Define and develop the optimal Australian HMR workforce.
A successful national HMR strategy demands a strategic, long-term approach to workforce development – one that ensures the system has the right people, with the right skills, in the right places.
Currently, this is not reflected in the funding practices of the two major HMR funders the NHMRC and the MRFF. The flagship fellowship program for the NHMRC the Investigator Grants had an application success rate of less than 1 in 7 in 2024. While the Investigator Grants are not designed for whole-of-career support, it is indicative of a system where there is not sufficient support for career pathways.
While it is critical to continue to distribute HMR funding on the basis of excellence and allow research institutions to pursue basic research agendas with autonomy, there is also a need to build a sustainable workforce targeted to national needs.
Particularly important is systemic support for the clinician researchers who combine clinical training with research training and undertake research in clinical settings. The Go8 has previously advocated for a structured framework for the sustainable development of a clinician researcher workforce.[7]
Health and medical research strengthened by being effectively integrated and supported by the national R&D system
Recommendation 5: Establish a Central R&D Coordination Body
Australia’s research, development and innovation (RD&I) system is currently fragmented across multiple portfolios – including Health, Industry, Science, Education, and Treasury (e.g. the R&D Tax Incentive). This fragmentation undermines strategic coherence, creates duplication, and limits the system’s ability to deliver coordinated national outcomes.
To address this, the Government must establish a central Australian Government agency for research and innovation. This agency should lead the development of a long-term, decadal RD&I strategy and provide strategic oversight of major research funding bodies, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
A central coordination body would:
- Streamline RD&I efforts, reducing duplication and fostering collaboration across disciplines and sectors.
- Simplify access to funding for foundational, mission-driven, and industry-linked research.
- Enhance public engagement and advocacy for the value of research.
- Support both short-term growth and long-term transformation by increasing industry’s absorptive capacity through direct collaboration and a research-trained workforce.
This coordination is particularly critical for HMR and the future operation of Australia’s health system. Increasingly, research across all disciplines – AI, digital technologies, biomedical and systems engineering, and humanities and social sciences – is directly relevant to health delivery. As such, HMR can no longer remain siloed within the health portfolio and still deliver on the ambitions of the Draft Strategy.
A national agency would also enable coordinated management of MRFF and MREA funding, and provide a platform for a National Strategy Advisory Council, as proposed in the Draft Strategy. It would ensure that HMR is integrated into a broader national RD&I framework, rather than operating in isolation.
Moreover, such an agency could drive the development of a national RD&I investment strategy, targeting 3 per cent of GDP—a benchmark that would position Australia alongside leading innovation economies such as the United States, Germany, Israel, South Korea, and Japan.
Finally, a central agency would bring a national approach to research infrastructure, which is critical to HMR. This includes the renewal and sustainable funding of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS)—a foundational pillar of Australia’s research capability.
[1] The three Go8 submissions to the SERD process may be viewed at
[2] See https://www.finance.gov.au/government/australian-government-investment-funds/medical-research-future-fund
[3] https://www.pbo.gov.au/publications-and-data/publications/costings/alternative-mrff-disbursements-allocated-ten-year-medical-research-plan
[4] The Go8 estimates that every dollar of direct research funding – such as from Government research funders – requires $1.19 in additional support from discretionary university funding sources.
[5] Noting that the $3.2 billion of health research invested by the Go8 will have contained other smaller government funders outside the NHMRC and MRFF.
[6] This is the current value of the expenditure for 2022-23 reported in the SRI tables for the 2025-26 budget
[7] See Strengthening Australian Clinical Research – Group of Eight Submission to the Medical Workforce Reform Advisory Committee: https://go8.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Go8-AICRTP-FINAL.pdf
