Missions are initiatives with specific, ambitious goals; in some instances, but not all, missions are designed with the objective to seek significant co-funding investments.
Genomics Health Futures Mission
The Federal Government announced the MRFF Australian Genomics Health Futures Mission (Genomics Mission) as part of its $1.3 billion National Health and Medical Industry Growth Plan.
The Genomics Mission will see $500 million invested over 10 years to ensure that Australians live longer and better through access to genomic knowledge and technology. The intended outcomes of the Genomics Mission are to save and transform more than 200,000 Australian lives and develop new industries, drugs, devices and therapies to create jobs and growth.
Under the Genomics Mission, the Australian Government has announced a Projects Grants scheme to fund the full spectrum of the research and development pipeline for the development of new diagnostics, medicines and treatments from genomics research and to support the ethical, legal and social adoption of genomics into health and healthcare.
The Projects Grant stream will run over nine years from 2019-20 to 2027-28. Funding will be available for researchers at all career stages, including early and mid-career, and will encourage collaboration and multidisciplinary teams to work together to answer complex genomics research questions.
The Project Grants stream will fund the full spectrum of the research and development pipeline, including clinical trials, aiming to:
- provide the pathways for the development of new diagnostics, medicines and treatments from genomics research
- expand genomics research effort and reach, allowing researchers and commercial partners to sustain efforts in discovery, build evidence for scaling applications, and build new markets
- ensure that later stage translation and flagship work is not hampered by a lack of investment in early research.
To encourage research that prioritises health system and commercial needs, projects that can demonstrate validation of research questions by end-users will be favoured. This can include the health system, clinicians, patient groups, and industry. Validation of research questions can take the form of agreement or assent to the questions, or more material support such as in-kind or financial support from other parties.
A total of $156 million over nine years for the Projects Grant stream and $17.6 million over nine years for the Ethical, Legal and Social Issues Grant stream.
The Government has also announced the first of its Genomics Mission Flagship programs. Flagships run over nine years from 2019-20 to 2027-28 and are aimed at demonstrating the clinical and/or public health utility, cost-effectiveness, and translation capability of genomics in the clinical environment to support adoption of genomics in mainstream healthcare.
Funding will be available for large-scale pilot research studies (flagships) that generate the evidence needed to implement genomics in the clinic in an efficient and cost effective manner and enable discontinuation of unnecessary or outdated practice.
Flagships will occur late in the research and development pipeline. It is anticipated that flagships will build on a significant pre-existing body of evidence for an intervention, including robust safety and effectiveness indicators, in order to test the value, scalability and/or system preparedness of implementing the intervention in the clinical environment. A total of $106 million of nine years will be made available through the Flagships stream.
Million Minds Mental Health Research Mission
The Government will deliver $125 million over 10 years to the Million Minds Mission to assist a million people who might otherwise not be part of mental health research and clinical trials to access new approaches to diagnosis, treatment and recovery. Over its ten year trajectory, the Million Minds Research Mission will target five broad areas of critical importance to national mental health and wellbeing. The priorities of the first round of funding will be child and youth mental health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health, and eating disorders.
The Government has announced a second round of funding of $8 Million to support research into Suicide Prevention, to be opened for competitive application in November 2019. The Minister has indicated that this opportunity will support activities directly addressing suicide prevention, ranging in size from community programs to the national level.
Brain Cancer Mission
The goal of the Mission is to double the survival rates and improve the quality of life of patients with brain cancer over the next 10 years, with the longer term aim of defeating brain cancer.
The Mission is underpinned by investment strategies with the following four objectives:
- increased patient survival, quality of life and care experience
- increased and equitable access and participation in clinical trials
- expanded research platforms and technologies
- increased researcher capacity and excellence.
The MRFF has announced they will fund a 2019 Brain Cancer Survivorship Grant Opportunity, with the objective to support the development of better approaches to address the medical, functional and psychosocial impacts of brain cancer to improve quality of life and the survivorship experience. Survivorship must be focused on children, adolescents and young adults, or adults with malignant brain cancer, their families or carers.
Cardiovascular Health
The 10-year Mission for Cardiovascular Health aim to improve health outcomes through prevention strategies, earlier detection and improved outcomes for patients suffering a heart attack or stroke. The Mission will provide $220 million over ten years (from 2019-2020) to drive transformative improvements.
The objective of the 2019 Cardiovascular Health Grant Opportunity is to support multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches in three priority areas to drive significant improvements in cardiovascular health and stroke outcomes such as disability, mortality and morbidity:
- Improving prevention of heart disease and stroke
- Improved survival outcomes after an acute heart or stroke event through a focus on treatment
- Improving secondary prevention and survivorship after a cardiovascular event.
Stem Cell Mission
The Medical Research Future Fund – Stem Cell Therapies Mission provides $150 million over 10 years from 2019-20 to support stem cell research to deliver innovative, safe and effective treatments.
The Mission has a specific focus to:
- accelerate the development of safe, effective and affordable stem cell-based therapies
- generate new treatments using human tissues made from stem cells
- build the health system and commercial sector to deliver these transformative treatments for the community.
Ageing, Aged Care and Dementia Mission
The 10-year Dementia, Ageing and Aged Care Mission will provide $185 million to support medical research focused on ageing, aged care and dementia (diagnosis, treatment and prevention), fall prevention and avoidable hospitalisations and assistive technology to support independence.
Indigenous Health Futures Fund
The Indigenous Health Research Fund will support practical, innovative health research into the best approaches to prevention, early intervention, and treatment of those health conditions that are of greatest concern to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
The Indigenous Health Research grant opportunity aims to support multidisciplinary teams of researchers to undertake collaborative, intervention-focussed research that is transformative, scalable and demonstrates the greatest impact on health outcomes and translation into policy and/or practice. Importantly, research should be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and conducted through close engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
The fund will provide up to $13.5 million over three years (2019-20 to 2021-22) to support research into four key health challenges:
- Ending avoidable deafness
- Improving outcomes from chronic kidney disease
- Improving adolescent mental health.
- Ending avoidable blindness
Traumatic Brain Injury Mission
The Traumatic Brain Injury Mission (the Mission) will provide $50 million over ten years from 2019-20 to improve the recovery of patients with a traumatic brain injury. The mission will seek to better predict recovery outcomes after a traumatic brain injury, develop new technologies and identify the most effective care and treatments.
The expected outcome of the research is innovative diagnostic and prognostic methods that facilitate longer term advances in TBI treatment and drive improvements in health and social outcomes for patients after TBI and people around them.