The Australian government announced an investment of more than $1 billion in groundbreaking medical research through the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians.

As part of this investment, more than $16.9 million has been awarded to researchers to study women’s health issues and aspects of primary health care, and to facilitate more and better clinical trials of new and improved treatments.

In the lead up to Women’s Health Week (7-11 September 2020) the MRFF grants announced are:

• $5 million over five years to the National Women’s Health Research, Translation and Impact Network, for research with strong potential to improve health outcomes for women and girls
• $5 million over four years to the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance to be a national partner providing specialised leadership and support to both investigator-led and industry clinical trials, and to Clinical Quality Registries
• more than $6.9 million to five projects to improve primary health care in the areas of contraception and abortion for rural women, health care for people in aged care, diabetes in Indigenous Australians, nutrition and heart disease, and the health of urban Indigenous people (details below).

Compared with men, women have a higher life expectancy but experience more disease burden from living with disease, rather than dying early from disease and injury.

The women’s health network will use the funding for research into nine priority areas, including reproductive health, mental health, and preventing cancer and heart disease.

The project will also boost national and international collaboration on women’s health, build health workforce capacity and develop leaders in women’s health.

In addition to these grants, I am today announcing new grant opportunities worth more than $86.5 million, for clinical trials and other vital research.

Clinical trials grant opportunities totalling $77.2 million will provide up to:

• $24 million for the Million Minds Mission Mental Health Research supporting access to new approaches to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery
• $3 million for clinical trials to examine the benefits of medicinal cannabis for managing pain, symptoms and side effects for cancer patients
• $25.2 million for international clinical trial collaborations
• $25 million for clinical trials of new or improved treatments for rare cancers, rare diseases and other illness with unmet clinical need.

Other grant opportunities are making $9.3 million available for research:

• $4.8 million for primary health care researchhehe
• $4.5 million from the MRFF and National Health and Medical Research Council for research into silicosis, a preventable lung disease related to inhalation of fine silica dust from artificial stone bench tops.

Investing in health and medical research is a key priority of our Government’s Long Term National Health Plan. Research of all kinds is essential to improve our prevention of disease, health care and treatments, and to make our health system work better for all Australians.