Research Australia

26/08/2026

05/08/2026

💹 INSPIRE | Issue 39 is out now!

This edition of INSPIRE spotlights the economic and social case for Australia’s health and medical research and innovation sector, examining the jobs, industries and healthcare savings this investment delivers. As calls for smarter investment grow louder, we explore both the returns this sector generates and the case for treating research as economic infrastructure rather than a discretionary line item.

We are grateful to The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, a Centre of Sax Institute, Avant Foundation, Hepatitis Australia, Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand (HSRAANZ), Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI), Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Lions Eye Institute, Luminesce Alliance, Macquarie University, Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI), Translational Research Institute Australia and University of Melbourne for their important insights and stories.

We hope this edition of INSPIRE encourages you to consider what is possible when research is backed with the investment and confidence it deserves. Enjoy reading!

📖 Read INSPIRE Issue 39: https://researchaustralia.org/inspire-magazine/

05/08/2026

Finalist Spotlight | Health Services Research Award
Sponsored by Bond University

Deakin Distinguished Professor Andrea Driscoll has spent her career proving that nursing-led innovation can reshape entire health systems. Her national study of heart failure nurse-led clinics cut 30-day rehospitalisation and mortality by 42%, a model now running in 39 hospitals and embedded in the National Heart Foundation's clinical guidelines. As Chair of Nursing at Monash Health and Deakin University, and a practising nurse practitioner at Austin Health, she works at the intersection of research and real-world care.

Her telehealth cardiovascular program across six regional hospitals reduced rehospitalisations by up to 20% and trained over 1,500 health professionals, while her Statewide Heart Failure project now benchmarks care across all of Victoria. Andrea is a Sigma Theta Tau International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame inductee and the first non-American recipient of the American Heart Association Lifetime Achievement Award.

Join us on 20 August 2026 at the Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park to celebrate finalists like Andrea. Tickets: researchaustralia.org/awards/

03/08/2026

Finalist Spotlight | Frontiers Award
Sponsored by UNSW

Dr Daniel Fernández-Ruiz, Senior Research Fellow at the UNSW RNA Institute and UNSW School of Biomedical Sciences, is investigating how vaccines can generate the right kind of immunity, in the right part of the body, for long-lasting protection. Many vaccines work by stimulating antibodies that circulate through the blood — but malaria is harder to stop this way, hiding inside liver cells during a silent early stage of infection. Dr Fernández-Ruiz's research helped establish tissue-resident memory T cells, immune cells that take up long-term residence within organs, as powerful protectors against liver-stage malaria.

His current work is uncovering the molecular mechanisms that control how these cells form and persist, with a focus on non-coding RNA as a new frontier in immune regulation. He's now translating these discoveries into studies of malaria-exposed human populations, working toward vaccines that are effective in the communities that need them most — with principles that could also shape future vaccines for other infectious diseases, cancer immunotherapies and autoimmune treatments.

Join us to celebrate Dr Fernández-Ruiz and all our finalists on 20 August.

🎟️ researchaustralia.org/awards/

02/08/2026

Finalist Spotlight | Digital & Data Health Innovation Award
Sponsored by Digital Health CRC

Data Connect Australia (formerly the Population Health Research Network) provides Australia's national data linkage infrastructure — the backbone of population health research. Established in 2009, it has grown from two data linkage units into a nationwide network spanning every state and territory, linking hundreds of datasets and billions of records, with zero privacy breaches in its history.

Its work has shaped real outcomes: tracking COVID-19 patients through the health system in real time, proving that asbestos-insulated homes posed a genuine cancer risk to thousands of ACT families, and helping shift Australia's cervical cancer screening to more accurate, less frequent HPV testing. Connected data, used responsibly, changes lives.

🎟️ Get your tickets: researchaustralia.org/awards/

30/07/2026

Finalist Spotlight | Discovery Award

Every day in Australia, opioids are linked to 150 hospitalisations and three deaths. For decades, they were prescribed for acute back and neck pain on the strength of indirect evidence alone. Dr Caitlin Jones and the OPAL team tested that assumption properly — and the results changed medicine worldwide.

As first author on the OPAL trial, the first placebo-controlled study of its kind, Dr Jones helped prove that oxycodone offers zero benefit over placebo for acute spinal pain, and is linked to worse outcomes down the track. Published in The Lancet, the findings didn't just make headlines on CNN, ABC, BBC and NPR — reaching an estimated 50 million people globally — they went straight into World Health Organization clinical guidelines and US federal opioid policy.

🎟️ Get your tickets: researchaustralia.org/awards/

29/07/2026

Finalist Spotlight | Advocacy & Philanthropy Award
Sponsored by AbbVie Australia

Founded in 2004, the Neil and Norma Hill Foundation has spent more than two decades funding early-stage, high-risk research into rare, chronic and life-threatening diseases — the kind of work mainstream grant bodies often overlook. Through sustained, multi-year partnerships with the University of Sydney, Children's Medical Research Institute and the The Westmead Institute for Medical Research, the Foundation adopts an early-stage, recurrent, multi-year funding approach, which is intended to serve as a launchpad for broader success.

That patient, purposeful funding has helped seed a world-first stem cell organoid model for childhood blindness, advance pre-clinical gene therapy strategies for Rett syndrome, and shape national research priorities launched at NSW Parliament House in 2024.

🎟️ Tickets: researchaustralia.org/awards/

28/07/2026

Finalist Spotlight | Digital & Data Health Innovation Award
Sponsored by Digital Health CRC

Could hospital records hold the key to predicting dementia risk? Researchers behind Unlocking Hidden Insight think so. By analysing health administrative data from over 650,000 older NSW hospital patients across nearly 20 years, the team found that a single episode of hospital delirium triples a patient's risk of later developing dementia — with each further episode adding another 20% to that risk.

Led by Professor Shlomo Berkovsky (Macquarie University) and Professor Ruth Hubbard (The University of Queensland), this project shows how everyday hospital data can become a powerful tool for early intervention. Congratulations to the team on being named a finalist in this year's Research Australia Health and Medical Research Awards!

🎟️ Get your tickets: researchaustralia.org/awards/

27/07/2026

Finalist Spotlight | Discovery Award

Could genetics hold the key to fast-tracking treatments for autoimmune disease? Dr Angli Xue, an NHMRC Investigator Fellow at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and UNSW, thinks so.

His research mapped the genomic networks behind 16 immune-mediated diseases, uncovering up to 30% more disease-relevant connections than previous models and identifying the exact immune cells driving these conditions. That breakthrough now powers a drug repurposing program bringing hope to millions of people managing chronic autoimmune conditions.

🎥Hear from Dr Xue in his own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXOA0Nmsr28

🎟️ Grab your tickets for 20 August: researchaustralia.org/awards/
👉 Meet all our finalists: http://researchaustralia.org/.../2025-26-health-and.../ See less

27/07/2026

Finalist Spotlight | Health Services Research Award
Sponsored by Bond University

Meet Professor Sam Kosari, a pharmacist and health services researcher at RMIT University whose work has reshaped medication safety for older Australians. Over nine years, Professor Kosari led the research behind the Aged Care On-site Pharmacist model — taking it from a small ACT pilot right through to a major national trial, building the evidence that pharmacists embedded in aged care teams make care safer.

That evidence helped secure a $333 million Australian Government commitment to fund on-site pharmacists in aged care homes across the country, with uptake reaching around 300 homes in the first year and continued national expansion underway. It's research that has already changed how vulnerable older Australians are cared for.

Join us on 20 August at the Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park as we celebrate Sam and all of this year's finalists. Tickets: researchaustralia.org/awards/