Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF)

2021 Brain Cancer Research Grant Opportunity
Up to $7.5M for novel, ambitious, and innovative research approaches that address pre-clinical challenges in brain cancer by:

• demonstrating novel and innovative approaches to addressing a challenge in brain cancer that have high translational potential, and
• supporting strengthened collaborations across national and international brain cancer research networks and building critical mass in the Australian brain cancer research workforce.

The Kids’ Cancer Project is contributing additional funding to this grant opportunity, which can be used to supplement MRFF funding for applications that specifically focus on research targeting children, adolescents and/or young adults with brain cancer.

• Further information

2021 Clinical Trials Activity Grant Opportunity
$71.6M for research that give patients across Australia access to clinical trials that show which treatments and medicines work best. The Initiative promotes new approaches that support efficient and effective research and provides researchers with more opportunities to work with international colleagues to bring international trials to Australian patients.

Grants up to $3M will be awarded across 6 streams:

Rare cancers, rare diseases and unmet need

• Stream 1: conduct a clinical trial of new drug and/or non-drug treatments and therapies for rare cancers, rare diseases and/or unmet needs.
• Stream 2: conduct a clinical trial assessing the safety, effectiveness, and acceptability of neuro-stimulation for improving outcomes in patients with spinal cord injury
• Stream 3: conduct a clinical trial assessing the safety, effectiveness, and acceptability of pharmacological and/or non-pharmacological interventions for improving outcomes in individuals with chronic pain

Effective health interventions

• Stream 4: conduct a clinical trial of new drug and/or non-drug treatments and therapies in individuals who have been identified through molecular testing
• Stream 5: conduct an implementation science trial to determine the best ways to implement a proven preventive health intervention, screening or diagnostic test, therapeutic agent, technology or model of care that is not in routine use in Australia
• Stream 6: conduct a clinical trial assessing the comparative effectiveness and acceptability of health interventions in improving outcomes in individuals with complex chronic conditions, including co-morbidities
   
• Further information   

2021 Early to Mid-Career Researchers Grant Opportunity
$42.8 million for projects led and undertaken by Early- (within 5 years post PhD conferral) and Mid-Career (between 5 and 10 years post PhD conferral) Researchers. This Grant Opportunity is informed by the feedback received directly from EMCRs through the May 2021 Roundtable.

• Stream 1 (Incubator): conduct early stage, small scale research, led by early-career researchers, that seeks to assess the potential and feasibility of novel strategies to address a critical or intractable health issue. The team must be exclusively EMCRs, where the CIA is an ECR and at least 80% of all CIs are ECRs. $200k - $1M.
• Stream 2 (Accelerator): establish a large-scale interdisciplinary research program, led by mid-career researchers, that drives implementation of substantial improvements to health care and/or health system effectiveness. The team must be exclusively EMCRs, where the CIA is an MCR and at least 80% of all CIs are MCRs. $3M - $5M
• Stream 3 (Targeted Call for Research): utilise co-funding between the MRFF, a sponsoring academic organisation and partner organisation(s) to accelerate translation of research led by early to mid-career researchers. $2M from the MRFF matched by cash from sponsoring academic organisations and at least 1 partner organisation.
   
• Further information

2021 Chronic Respiratory Conditions Grant Opportunity
Grants $200k - $2M for medical research and medical innovation projects that:

• Stream 1: develop treatable trait-based precision medicine approaches for chronic respiratory disease
• Stream 2: clinically validate feasible technology enabled approaches to medication and therapeutic adherence and self-management of chronic respiratory diseases
   
• Further information

2021 Primary Health Care Digital Innovations Grant Opportunity
$5M for research and medical innovation projects that develop novel digital health tools and technologies to improve access to primary health care services in disadvantaged and/or vulnerable populations (for example, migrant communities, people living with disabilities, lower socioeconomic communities, and rural and regional Australia).

Applicants must demonstrate how their proposed research responds to, and is driven by, extensive engagement with end users (including patients, clinicians and health service providers) across the entire research life cycle.

• Further information

2021 Maternal Health and Healthy Lifestyles Grant Opportunity
$15M for novel and/or innovative research that will generate outcomes for translation into health benefits for Australians. Grants $250k - $2M will be awarded across 3 streams:

• Stream 1: develop new scalable approaches to improve maternal and or early childhood nutrition and exercise
• Stream 2: develop new scalable approaches to reduce alcohol and other drug use by adolescents and young adults
• Stream 3: develop new co-designed and scalable lifestyle interventions to reduce the risk and incidence of cancer in priority populations
   
• Further information

$10M for projects that develop and/or test tools, resources, and/or strategies that could be implemented to improve the opportunities for consumers to exert control over their own health and/or be involved in health and medical research to ultimately improve both the health care experience of consumers and the health care provided to consumers.

• Stream 1 ($200k - 600k per grant): projects that develop and/or test the implementation of interventions for improving:
  • health self-efficacy for consumers with long term diseases and conditions, and/or
  • health self-efficacy for priority populations (including culturally and linguistically diverse, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and low socioeconomic status).
• Stream 2 ($300k - $1M per grant): projects that use citizen science methodologies where citizens and scientists use web-based platforms and digital tools to co-create health knowledge that has practical implications for improving health outcomes and/or improving consumer experiences of health care, whilst increasing consumer understanding of, and consumer involvement in, research.
   
• Further information

2022 Effective Treatment and Therapies Grant Opportunity

$13M across 3 streams to support the development and implementation of effective exercise programs that reduce the risk of disease in Australian adults aged over 45 years, increase physical activity amongst priority populations, and ameliorate symptoms of progressive neurological deterioration and mental impairment in children and adolescents.

• Stream 1: develop, implement and/or validate scalable approaches for personalised exercise programs to maximise disease risk factor reduction and adherence in adults aged over 45 years who are not currently meeting physical activity guidelines. $250k - $1.5M per project.
• Stream 2: develop, implement and/or validate approaches for effective community-led physical activity programs co-designed with a priority population. $100k - $600k per project.
• Stream 3: develop, implement and/or validate approaches that use physical treatments and therapies to improve the quality of life of children and adolescents with childhood dementia, an umbrella term used to describe progressive neurological deterioration and mental impairment in children. $100k - $600k per project.
   
• Further information

2022 International Clinical Trial Collaborations Grant Opportunity

$12.6M to support projects that:

• Promote Australian involvement in international collaborative investigator-initiated clinical trials research through the establishment and co-ordination of clinical trial site/s in Australia.
• Provide high-quality evidence of the effectiveness of novel health treatments, drugs or devices in ‘usual care’ settings, which will support a decision on whether to deliver the intervention in an Australian setting.

Applicants must propose a clinical trial in Australia in collaboration with international counterparts. Applications where international collaboration provides for the successful conduct of clinical trials that may otherwise not be feasible in Australia are particularly encouraged. Note that all clinical trial sites located overseas must be supported by the study’s international research partners or other sources of funding.

Up to $3M per project.

• Further information

20 Jul 2022
Round 1

8 Feb 2023
Round 2

27 Jul 2022
Round 1

15 Feb 2023
Round 2

3 Aug 2022
Round 1

22 Feb 2023
Round 2

2022 Clinician Researchers: Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Grant Opportunity

$20.3M across three streams to support nurses, midwives and allied health professionals to improve the quality of health care, practice and systems by undertaking applied research in health care.

Streams 1 and 2: Grants up to $1.5M for projects led by nurses, midwives and allied health professionals that validate and implement new approaches for improving the quality of patient care. Projects must:

• Address a clearly defined health care priority from local health care and/or practice
• Have the potential to improve clinical practice or health system effectiveness and therefore patient outcomes
• Be embedded within health services (e.g. community-based care, hospitals, general practices); however can also be coordinated across networks (e.g. Primary Health Networks, Local Health Networks) and thus able to provide immediate benefits to patients
  • Where possible build capacity by:
    • including support for nurses, midwives and allied health clinicians to undertake PhDs or research masters degrees that contribute to the proposed research
    • including early career nurse, midwife and/or allied health researchers as part of CI team

Stream 1: Nurse or midwife-led teams

Stream 2: Allied health-led teams

Teams must meet eligibility criteria by containing a minimum number of clinician researchers. Refer to guidelines for details.

Stream 3: One grant up to $300k to support a project that prospectively evaluates projects funded through Streams 1 and 2 to generate knowledge that improves understanding of the factors that promote the adoption, impact and sustainability of evidence-based practice in health care.

Teams must meet eligibility criteria by containing a minimum number of clinician researchers. Refer to guidelines for details.

• Further information

2022 Cardiovascular Health Grant Opportunity

$24M to generate knowledge to improve the detection, prevention and treatments for cardiovascular disease and stroke, across 3 streams:

Stream 1 (Targeted Call for Research): Grants up to $1.5M for large-scale interdisciplinary research to improve the understanding of cardiovascular disease risk, including biological mechanisms. Research proposals in this stream must focus on one of the following topics:

• Topic A: identifying and evaluating novel diagnostic markers and methods to better predict risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke
• Topic B: developing and evaluating clinical pathways for implementing optimised evidence-based diagnosis and treatment
• Topic C: supporting integration of individual and population approaches to optimise cardiovascular disease and stroke prevention
• Topic D: better understanding the mechanistic basis of how chronic diseases contribute to cardiovascular disease and stroke, and develop models to include this in risk prediction and prevention strategies.

Stream 2 (Targeted Call for Research): Grants up to $1.5M for large-scale interdisciplinary research to conduct preclinical development and validation of novel molecular targets and novel device approaches for cardiovascular disease and/or stroke.

Stream 3 (Accelerator): Grants up to $5M to conduct a large-scale project focused on discovery and testing of new, broadly applicable (multiple disease groups) interventions for cardiovascular disease and/or stroke (e.g. anti-inflammatory targets).

• Further information

2022 Stem Cell Therapies Grant Opportunity

$10M across two streams to generate novel approaches to stem cell-based therapies that have the potential to transform clinical care and generate new treatments using human tissues made from stem cells for preclinical development.

Stream 1: Grants of $500k - $1M to support short-term, early stage, small-scale development projects to establish the feasibility of novel cellular therapies. Applications should involve novel applications of human tissue or pluripotent stem cells.

Stream 2: Grants of $500k - $1M to support short-term, early-stage, small-scale projects that:

• Develop and validate human stem-cell based models of disease, including genetic disease, infectious diseases and cancer
• Develop high-content or high-throughput screening approaches, or
• Generate patient-derived stem cell lines for screening treatment

• Further information

2022 Dementia, Ageing and Aged Care Grant Opportunity

$24M across three streams to support research that improves the wellbeing of Australians living with dementia and their carers, and enables earlier and more effective diagnosis of dementia.

Stream 1: Grants up to $2M to develop interventions that deliver holistic and multidisciplinary care after diagnosis to improve quality of life for people living with dementia and their carers. Must focus on interventions targeting transitions between care types and settings.

Stream 2: Grants up to $1.5M to conduct implementation research focused on addressing inequalities in uptake of prevention activities to support health ageing and quality of life for:

• Topic A – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• Topic B – rural, regional and remote populations
• Topic C – culturally and linguistically diverse populations

Stream 3: Grants up to $2M to enhance utility of neuropsychological tests for dementia.

• Further information

2022 Australian Brain Cancer Research Infrastructure Grant Opportunity

Up to $6M to fund a national consortium that:

• Develops, enhances and integrates brain cancer research infrastructure platform
• Enables and promotes new and improved research approaches and methodologies
• Enables and promotes accessibility and the ongoing use of the brain cancer research infrastructure by researchers and clinicians.

‘Brain cancer research infrastructure’ includes clinical quality registries, biobanks, data collections, linkage platforms, use of artificial intelligence and informatics.

Applications must include a minimum of three brain cancer research infrastructure platforms, with two of these being clinical quality registry and biobank platforms.

• Further information

2022 Pancreatic Cancer Research Grant Opportunity

$12M to fund pancreatic cancer research across two streams. Note there is a different deadline for each stream.

• Stream 1: Up to $2M to develop, implement and/or validate therapeutic approaches (drug and/or non-drug) for improving the management of pain and symptoms in individuals with pancreatic cancer
• Stream 2: Up to $2M to promote Australian involvement in international collaborative investigator-initiated clinical trials testing the effectiveness of treatments (drug and/or non-drug) for pancreatic cancer through the establishment and coordination of clinical trials site/s in Australia.

• Further information

24 Aug 2022
Stream 1

23 Nov 2022
Stream 2

31 Aug 2022
Stream 1

30 Nov 2022
Stream 2

7 Sep 2022
Stream 1

7 Dec 2022
Stream 2

2022 Mitochondrial Donation Pilot Program Grant Opportunity

$15M to fund one project which conducts a pilot program, including a clinical trial, to build the evidence base to determine the safety, efficacy and feasibility of implementing mitochondrial donation reproductive technology in clinical practice settings. The design and conduct of the project must be consistent with the requirements of the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve’s Law) Act 2022

The applicant or at least one of the participating institutions and/or partner organisations involved must be a constitutional corporation able to apply for and hold a mitochondrial donation clinical trial research and training licence or clinical trial licence. The proposed pilot program must also partner with an accredited assisted reproductive technology (ART) centre.

• Further information

2022 Multiple Sclerosis Research Grant Opportunity

$18M to fund multiple sclerosis research across four streams. Note the deadline depends on the stream you are applying to.

• Stream 1: Grants up to $2M to promote Australian involvement in international collaborative investigator-initiated clinical trials testing the effectiveness of vaccines for prevention of latent Epstein-Barr virus infection through the establishment and coordination of clinical trial site/s in Australia.
• Stream 2: Grants up to $2M for clinical trials to accelerate the development or repurposing of therapeutic candidates (including antivirals) to treat Epstein-Barr virus for the purpose of preventing or treating conditions such as multiple sclerosis.
• Stream 3: Grants up to $2M to characterise how immune responses to viral infections trigger autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis in some individuals to generate knowledge that supports risk stratification so identified individuals can employ strategies to reduce their chance of developing autoimmune disease.
• Stream 4: Grants up to $1M to develop, implement and/or validate approaches for early intervention in individuals recovering from viral infections that aim to reduce the risk and/or severity of the long-term autoimmune consequences, including multiple sclerosis
   
• Further information

18 Jan 2023
Streams 1 and 2

16 Nov 2022
Streams 3 and 4

25 Jan 2023
Streams 1 and 2

23 Nov 2022
Streams 3 and 4

1 Feb 2023
Streams 1 and 2

30 Nov 2022
Streams 3 and 4