The NSW Medical Research Support Program (MRSP) has provided about $45 million a year to the state’s medical research institutions.
Jason Kovacic,executive director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute,said indirect funding was critical to research.Peter Braig
However,the current pot of funding provided by the program will expire on June 30,with researchers in the dark about whether it will be renewed.
Throughout 2020-24,the MRSP provided funding to 13 organisations,including the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute,Black Dog,the Centenary Institute and the Woolcock Institute.
“Through this investment,NSW Health aims to attract and retain the best researchers,and support the state’s capacity to deliver world-class medical research,” its website boasts.
While researcher salaries and other so-called “direct costs” of medical research in Australia are funded by federal grants such as the Medical Research Future Fund,the MRSP funds the indirect costs incurred in research,such as legal and reporting requirements,biobanking facilities and operational staff.
Other states run equivalent programs to ensure institutes can complete federally funded work.
A NSW Health committee has recommended the MRSP be renewed for a further four-year term.
But when Liberal MLC Susan Carter asked at a Senate estimates hearing last month about concerns that the program was ″at risk of a substantial cut″,NSW Health Minister Ryan Park took the question on notice,later saying further information about the program would become available on the department’s website.
TheSun-Herald put questions to Medical Research Minister David Harris last week,who was also not able to guarantee the funding would be renewed.
Professor Jason Kovacic,co-chair of the NSW chapter of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes,said the MRSP was critical for the state’s medical researchers.
“These indirect costs of doing research are going up and up,and it’s absolutely expected to keep going up as regulatory requirements increase,” he said.
“The research sector is already facing a significant problem covering this gap and relying on philanthropic donors. But we are increasingly concerned that there are sustainability issues in the sector,and we can’t have these institutes continuing to deliver on their significant discoveries without funding.
“The sense is that we’ve tapped out the potential of other sources of revenue,so it would be really dire if it was not renewed.”
In the past four years,he said the support from the MRSP had been invaluable to COVID-19 studies conducted by the state’s medical research institutes. At the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute,where Kovacic is executive director,he pointed to teams working towards transplants of artificial hearts and collaborations with Queensland researchers on the potential for spider venom to treat heart attacks.
Despite the approaching end date,Kovacic remained optimistic that the program’s funding would be renewed.
“We know it’s a new state government,and it’s their role to audit things like this to decide if they are worthwhile,” he said.
“So,we remain optimistic they will see it’s an incredible return on a relatively small investment.”
