Election Statements and Budget Submissions

The Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS) has today launched its 2025 Election Platform, calling on all political parties and candidates to strengthen Australia’s future resilience by placing health and medical research at the centre of our national agenda.

As Australia faces increasing health system pressures, economic uncertainty, and global challenges, the Academy is urging all parties to recognise the central role of health and medical research in bolstering the nation’s long-term resilience, innovation capacity, and global competitiveness.

“Our health and medical research sector is one of Australia’s most valuable national assets,” said Academy President, Professor Louise Baur AM PresAHMS. “It not only delivers life-changing healthcare solutions but also economic returns, job creation, and the knowledge base we need to respond to the biggest challenges of our time.”

“To maintain our global edge and safeguard the wellbeing of future generations, we need bold, strategic investment in health and medical research now.”

The Academy’s 2025 Election Platform is centred on three key priorities:

Building future-fit health systems: embedding research and innovation as core functions of the health system, and ensuring inclusive and sustainable research careers for early-and-mid-career researchers and the clinician researcher workforce.

Maintaining trust in health and medical science: tackling misinformation, strengthening health literacy, and supporting public confidence in research and health advice.

Equity and access to health and medical research: addressing long-standing gaps in research on women’s health, and improving access to health and medical research expertise across disciplines and geographies.

The Academy is calling on candidates and parties to engage with the platform and to support its implementation as a critical pillar of national policy. The platform includes a series of clear, actionable recommendations that would deliver significant impact for patients, the economy, and society.

Download the 2025 Election Platform here. 

In January 2024, the Academy responded to the Federal Government’s call for Pre-Budget submissions.

AAHMS’ submission encouraged the Government to maximise the value of health and medical research investments, drawing on recommendations from the Academy’s 2022 report,  Research and innovation as core functions in transforming the health system: A vision for the future of health in Australia.

AAHMS welcomes the Government’s investment – through the Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) – in developing a national health and medical research strategy (Strategy). Health and medical research and innovation are essential to improving health outcomes for Australian communities, and the Strategy has the potential to drive and maximise these outcomes. However, for its potential benefits to be realised, the implementation of the Strategy will require adequate, targeted and sustained funding. The 2024-25 Federal Budget is an excellent opportunity for the Government to invest in measures that will allow it to capitalise on its upcoming Strategy and ensure that the benefits can be felt by all Australians – ultimately leading to better health and economic outcomes.

The Academy’s submission had four key recommendations.

1. The Australian Government, through the Department of Health and Aged Care, should establish 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.
2. The Australian Government should develop a national strategy and implementation plan for sustainably building a world-class clinician researcher workforce. This should include a formal, cost-effective and harmonised clinician researcher training and career pathway that should be developed in partnership with state and territory health departments.
3. The Australian Government should increase the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) funding beyond indexation over the next five years to offset the real terms decrease that it has seen to its funding since 2010.
4. The Australian Government should continue to invest in nurturing and supporting Australia’s early- and mid-career researchers, who represent the future of Australian health and medical research innovation.

Download the Pre-Budget Submission here. 

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.

Download the Pre-Budget Submission here. 

The Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences has released a statement on priorities for health and medical research ahead of the 2022 Federal Election.

Cultivating a world-leading health and medical research sector and a world-class health system to protect the health of Australians against future pandemics, climate change and beyond.

Since the pandemic began, health and medical research has been in the global spotlight. In Australia, the path through the pandemic has been heavily reliant on our world-class health and medical research sector, which has provided timely, reliable and effective solutions.

These solutions did not just appear overnight. Past government investment has paid dividends. COVID-19 provides an example of how smart, strategic investment in health and medical research and innovation can provide the foundations to navigate Australia through significant health challenges.

While the efforts of our health and medical research community have been crucial, the pandemic has also exposed a number of key gaps across that sector that have prevented—and will continue to prevent—Australia from leading the world in research and innovation.

Unprecedented health challenges like climate change, chronic disease, an ageing population, and future pandemics threaten to bring poorer health outcomes, worsening health inequality and greater economic burden. Strategic investment to future-proof health and medical research and innovation and nurture a vibrant health and medical research community will be key to addressing these challenges.

As we move beyond the pandemic, the next Australian government has a unique opportunity to maximise the impact of health and medical research, and mitigate major health challenges by:

• Embedding research and innovation in the health system
• Investing strategically in health and medical research
• Building cross-sector linkages and growing commercialisation capacity
• Tackling health inequalities experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• Protecting the health of Australians from climate change

Download the full Submission here. 

In January 2021, in response to the Government’s call for submissions for the 2021-22 Budget, the Academy has highlighted the importance of an adaptable, skilled and responsive research and innovation sector working in concert with government, industry and the community.

Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its success in maintaining low case numbers and fatalities has highlighted the importance of long term investment in research and innovation to navigate the knowns and unknowns imposed by the novel coronavirus.

Australia has been at the forefront of research efforts on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19- leading the world in characterising the virus and deploying effective public health measures, and working at the cutting edge to develop diagnostics, vaccines and treatments. Australia was able to move quickly in these areas as a result of the expertise built from past investment in public health and basic laboratory research in areas such as microbiology and immunology.

To ensure that research and innovation are utilised to drive forward Australia’s economic and societal recovery from the pandemic and beyond, the Academy has called on the Government to strategically invest in five areas:

• Investing in research and innovation
• Building research infrastructure and workforce capacity
• Strengthening and securing our workforce
• Embedding research in the health system to improve health and wellbeing
• Providing science advice for the benefit of all Australians

The Academy’s full response can be downloaded here.