AAHMS welcomes ambition for reform and urges progress on national health and medical research strategy

The Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS) welcomes the ambition signalled through the Strategic Examination of Research and Development (SERD), and the broader recognition that Australia’s research, development and innovation system requires structural reform.

Australia’s health and medical research sector is under increasing strain. Fragmented funding, growing pressure on the research workforce, persistent challenges in translation and adoption, and a lack of system-wide coordination have all contributed to a research environment that is finding it harder to sustain excellence, build capability and deliver long-term public benefit.

AAHMS believes these pressures reinforce the need for coordinated, strategic reform across the health and medical research system, and notes that this need is already reflected in the draft National Health and Medical Research Strategy (NHMRS).

Academy President Professor Louise Baur AM FAHMS said the Academy welcomed the government’s recognition that the broader research and innovation system requires a more coordinated and strategic approach.

“The ambition to rethink how Australia supports research, development and innovation is welcome and overdue,” Professor Baur said.

The Academy believes reform must also be accompanied by continued support for senior, trusted and independent scientific advice to government, to help ensure that policy is informed by robust evidence and expert judgement.

“Health and medical research is a critical national capability. It underpins better health outcomes, a stronger and more resilient health system, and Australia’s ability to respond to future challenges.

“Our sector is under strain, and that requires more than incremental adjustments. It requires structural reform, clearer coordination, and a long-term strategy for sustaining capability across the full research pipeline.”

The draft National Health and Medical Research Strategy provides an important foundation for that work, setting out a broader and more balanced framework for the future of the sector.

“The draft National Health and Medical Research Strategy reflects many of the challenges the sector has been raising for some time,” Professor Baur said.

“It recognises the need for stronger system coordination, sustained capability, a more coherent approach to translation and implementation, and a clearer national framework for aligning health and medical research effort with public need.

“It is important that progress on the National Health and Medical Research Strategy is not delayed or diluted while broader discussion continues about the SERD. The government should proceed with finalising and implementing the national strategy and maintain momentum on reform in health and medical research.”

AAHMS emphasised that while the SERD has opened an important national conversation, health and medical research must be understood as more than one part of the broader innovation system.

“Health and medical science is not simply another industry pillar. It is a national mission and a system of capability that begins with discovery and ends in public benefit, and the SERD is strongest where it recognises this. The SERD cannot risk collapsing the value of health research into a narrower commercial or industrial logic” Professor Baur concluded.

AAHMS will release a more detailed analysis of the SERD and its recommendations in the coming weeks, including an assessment of their implications for health and medical research.

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