In January 2023, AAHMS responded to a call for submissions on priorities for the Federal Budget 2023-24.

The Academy highlighted two priorities to maximise the value of health spending in our Pre-Budget submission, which are drawn from our recent report, Research and innovation as core functions in transforming the health system: A vision for the future of health in Australia.

• The establishment of an inclusive, continuing mechanism that is empowered to develop and implement strategies for embedding research and innovation as core functions of the health system. An alliance for transforming health through research would bring together key partners to work collectively towards this aim.
• The development of a national strategy and implementation plan for building a world-class clinician researcher workforce. This should include a formal, harmonised clinician researcher training and career pathway that should be developed in partnership with state and territory health departments.

We also highlighted three additional priorities for  investing in research and innovation for the future:

• Increase the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) funding beyond indexation over the next five years to offset the real terms decrease in funding that has occurred since 2010.
• Grow funding for initiatives that support and retain early- and mid-career researchers.
• Ensure NHMRC-accredited Research Translation Centres receive meaningful, continuing funding to stimulate the formation of integrated, collaborative research teams that bring together health, academia and industry.

Details of these priorities, and how the government can maximise the value of health spending while investing in research and innovation for the future, is available in our pre-budget submission, which can be downloaded below.