Adelaide the big winner from NHMRC funding

Monday, 5 November 2001

ADELAIDE University has emerged as the nation's biggest winner from the latest round of medical research funding from the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Adelaide has received more than $25.7 million in funding for 37 research projects - the best figure for any Australian university on a per capita basis.

The projects funded span the breadth and depth of medical and health research at the University, and range across the departments of dentistry, medicine, molecular biosciences, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, pathology, pharmacology, physiology, psychiatry, psychology, surgery, and across the teaching hospitals.

The success rate for Adelaide's funding applications for project grants was 33.0%, up from 24.8% last year and well above the national average (just under 25%).

In actual dollar terms, Adelaide was ranked only behind Sydney and Melbourne universities, with Sydney receiving just 0.3% more funding than Adelaide. However, on a per capita basis Adelaide received more funding than any other university - its per capita funding was 80% above the average for other Group of Eight universities and 25% more than the next closest university (UWA).

"This is an incredibly strong result for Adelaide University, and one that continues to reflect the University's position as one of Australia's leading national research universities," says the Vice- Chancellor, Professor Cliff Blake.

"For its size, Adelaide is doing tremendously well, and is showing the rest of the nation that quality research of an international standing is being conducted here. The diversity and depth of the research projects also shows that there are many areas of strength within the University's faculties of Health Sciences and Science."

Adelaide's successful research grants included two major program grants totalling more than $12 million - one to better understand genetically inherited illnesses, and the other to look at how certain factors prior to birth could lead to development of disease later in life.

Many other projects have also been funded (37 in total), including research into methadone, fluoride, heart disease, sleep rhythms, premature delivery of babies, hormone replacement therapy, the nervous system, human jaw movements, child behaviour problems, brain injury, bones, psychological trauma, cancers and hepatitis C.

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