Funding scientific research - a national investment, not an expense

The recent Federal Budget announcements were a mixed bag for the life sciences. Significant cutbacks in some areas and exciting positives for medical research, particularly in the form of the proposal for a $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).

This is an early indication that while there will be ongoing support from the Abbott government for research, the structures and oversight will be different from anything previously experienced. While the government is still forming its views on the how the fund will operate is the time for the research community to contribute to the thinking.

In the case of the MRFF, it will operate under the watchful eye of a governance approach more akin to investment banking. After all, it has been created by the rolling over of the existing $1 billion of ‘uncommitted funds’ from the Health and Hospitals Fund managed by the Future Fund Board. What will be crucial is the range of activities that can be supported under the umbrella of the proposed MMRF. The devil will be in the details yet to be announced. It would be a great outcome for investment principles if the MRFF could financially support all the components that make up a medical research outcome.

Well placed to comment on these matters and leading the debate currently is Simon McKeon, executive chairman of the Macquarie Group. His chairing of the 2012-2013 Review of Health and Medical Research in Australia, his chairmanship of CSIRO and his comments to the National Press Club in Canberra in June of this year has provided insights and guidance for the government to consider.

McKeon’s focus at the Press Club was on “health economics”, “integrated health research clusters”, “investment returns”, “KPIs relating to research outcomes”, “facilitating trials by streamlining the number and scope of ethics committees nationally”, and advocating a “massive increase in the number of practitioner fellowships”. All sound, but what is critical at this juncture is that the enabling legislation and funding guidelines established for the MRFF provide for the range of activities along the innovation system - support infrastructure, scaled research funding, clinical trials, early-stage finance, facilities for technically advanced manufacturing and so on.

It will be to our shame to simply ‘pump-prime’ the research community and not achieve the purpose of the public investment - firstly, the growth of a whole industry sector - the ‘medical bioeconomy’, and secondly, improved health outcomes for Australians.

When we work with scale, a sense of national purpose and the eye of an investment banker, science can achieve our national potential - that has been a central part of Australia’s economic success over the past century. To keep that success going means reforming the innovation system so it all works. Centralisation, collaboration and integration around the latest technology and changes to our regulatory frameworks are key.

The establishment and workings of the MRFF will be an important debate to get right and one we need to be active in supporting because it will have significant knock-on consequences for the conduct of all scientific research in Australia.

Dr Steve Winslade, CEO, Australian Phenomics Facility

The Australian National University, Canberra

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