Medical Research Future Fund
The Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) is a $20 billion vehicle for investment in health and medical research. It represents the single largest boost to research funding in Australia’s history. It will support research and innovation activities with the objective of improving the health and wellbeing of Australians.
For further information on previous, current and potential future schemes or to discuss how your research might attract MRFF funding, please contact enquiries-MRFF@unimelb.edu.au
Sign up to the MRFF mailing list to stay up-to-date with MRFF related activities and new scheme announcements
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Current Funding Opportunities
TTRA Research Centres EOI
Opens 12 Jan 21, closes 15 Mar 21
Up to $10 million per Research Centres is available to support the establishment of two Research Centres focused on addressing identified priority areas for disease-related complications associated with diabetes or cardiovascular disease, respectively.
View TTRA Research Centres scheme
TTRA Research Projects EOI - Round 1
Opens 12 Jan 21, closes 22 Feb 21
Up to $750,000 per project is available to help eligible organisations develop innovative preventative, diagnostic, therapeutic and disease management products/solutions for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
View TTRA Research Projects scheme
2020 Indigenous Health Research
Opens 16 Dec 21, closes 10 Mar 21
Up to $11.065 million is available to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander led medical research and medical innovation projects that:
- Stream 1 (Incubator): conduct small-scale developmental projects to establish teams and feasible, evidence-based approaches across three Topics
- Stream 2 (Targeted Call for Research): develop effective approaches for improving the quality, research capabilities and impact of interventions within primary health care
View Indigenous Health Research scheme
2020 Rapid Applied Research Translation
Opens 4 Mar 21, closes 6 May 21
Up to $55 million is available to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that: use existing knowledge to develop, test and implement new approaches for the translation of research findings into health care and health interventions that have potential for broader applicability; address a clearly defined gap in the implementation of best practice health care and health interventions to improve health outcomes; and involve all stakeholders relevant to the research and its translation in its conceptualisation, design and implementation, including health care consumers and providers
View Rapid Applied Research Translation scheme
2020 Early Stage Translation and Commercialisation Support
Opens 4 Mar 21, closes 1 Apr 21
This grant opportunity will fund organisations to identify and work in partnership with Australian small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to progress medical research and medical innovation projects for the following four streams:
- Stream 1: preclinical medical research or medical innovation projects with commercial potential
- Stream 2: early clinical development of novel drugs, or novel uses for existing drugs, with commercial potential
- Stream 3: early clinical development of medical devices with commercial potential
- Stream 4: early stage development of digital health technologies with commercial potential
View Early Stage Translation and Commercialisation Support scheme
2020 Paediatric Cancer
Opens 16 Dec 20, closes 10 Mar 21
Up to $9.6 million is available to support a co-ordinated program of Victorian medical research and medical innovation projects aimed at improving outcomes for children with cancer by improving:
- basic knowledge about cancer in children
- the clinical management of cancer in children, including the patient journey and survivorship
2020 Traumatic Brain Injury Mission
Opens 16 Dec, closes 3 Mar 21
Up to $4.3 million of funding is available in 2020-21 for five streams:
- Stream 1 (Incubator): through a competitively selected national consortium, improve care for moderate to severe TBI by designing optimised informatics approaches that gather nationally representative data. Common data elements to be determined by the national consortium will include social, biological, health, clinical and intervention and outcome aspects that are of value to people with lived experience of TBI.
- Stream 2 (Incubator): conduct a small-scale development project to identify best-practice evidence-based care for moderate to severe TBI, and facilitate consistent implementation by developing clinical guidelines and protocols.
- Stream 3 (Targeted Call for Research): identify treatments, clinical indicators and interventions to improve the effectiveness of acute care for moderate to severe TBI by reviewing existing knowledge and building research evidence
- Stream 4 (Incubator): conduct a small-scale project to identify best-practice, evidence-based care for mild TBI across the lifespan and facilitate consistent implementation through clinical guidelines and through protocols that are accessible for community use.
- Stream 5 (Targeted Call for Research): improve health and wellbeing for people with TBI by identifying and addressing the gaps in awareness that are leading to poor outcomes.
View Traumatic Brain Injury scheme
2020 Cardiovascular Health
Opens 16 Dec 20, closes 3 Mar 21
Up to $20.28 million is available to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that:
- Stream 1 (Targeted Call for Research): develop novel interventions, including therapeutics and devices, to prevent cardiovascular disease and stroke, including novel interventions that target individuals who experience rapid progression of disease despite best-practice care.
- Stream 2 (Targeted Call for Research): develop novel treatments and devices to improve outcomes (e.g. reduce complications, length of stay) following acute cardiovascular and stroke events
- Stream 3 (Incubator): conduct small-scale development projects to establish feasible, evidence-based approaches aimed at improving survivorship and reducing morbidity.
View Cardiovascular Health scheme
2020 Stem Cell Therapies
Opens 16 Dec 20, closes 3 Mar 21
Up to $19 million is available to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that:
- Stream 1 (Incubator): support proof-of-concept studies to establish the feasibility of novel stem cell-based therapies
- Stream 2 (Targeted Call for Research): conduct Phase 1 clinical trials for promising stem cell treatments
- Stream 3 (Targeted Call for Research): apply stem cell-based screens for the development of treatments for inherited disease, complex disease, infectious disease and cancer
- Stream 4 (Targeted Call for Research): foster research on the ethical, social, regulatory, health economics and legal issues associated with the development, availability, regulation and application of stem cell therapies and treatments
- Stream 5 (Targeted Call for Research): use stem cell-derived tissue models to rapidly screen TGA (and FDA) approved drugs as potential treatments for COVID-19.
View Stem Cell Therapies scheme
2020 Genomics Health Futures Mission
Opens 16 Dec 20, closes 3 Mar 21
Up to $45 million is available to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects across three streams that:
- Stream 1: identify and diagnose novel - primarily monogenic or oligogenic - rare diseases and increase the genomic diagnostic rate towards 70% by 2025.
- Stream 2: improve early detection and targeted treatment for the most common cancers to reduce the burden of disease.
- Stream 3: promote diagnostic effectiveness and efficiency through better understanding of the impact of genetic variants through functional genomics by establishing a national functional genomics approach to enhance novel gene discoveries, increase diagnostic rates and enable disease modelling to support development of targeted therapies.
View Genomics Health Futures Mission scheme
2020 Dementia, Ageing and Aged Care
Opens 16 Dec 20, closes 10 Mar 21
Up $17.5 million is available to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that:
- Stream 1 (Targeted Call for Research): identify an appropriate suite of measures that enable appraisal of local organisation and system performance to assess the impact of new care delivery models and quality improvement for people living with dementia
- Stream 2 (Targeted Call for Research): develop interventions that deliver holistic and multidisciplinary care after diagnosis to improve quality of life for people living with dementia and their carers
- Stream 3 (Targeted Call for Research): develop new and improved diagnostic and prognostic tools for dementia, including biological markers of disease onset and progression
- Stream 4 (Targeted Call for Research): conduct research to understand and address barriers to effective infection control practices in aged care settings and during transitions.
View Dementia, Ageing and Aged Care scheme
2020 Clinician Researchers: Applied Research in Health
Opens 24 Feb 21, closes 12 April 21
Up to $25 million is available to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians by supporting clinicians to improve the quality of health care, practice and systems by undertaking applied research in health care that: (1) improves outcomes for their patients; (2) addresses an area of high need; (3) improves the safety, quality and effectiveness of health services, including connectivity; (4) improves efficiency in health services or health system/s.
2020 Improving Diagnosis in Cancers with Low Survival Rates
Opens 14 Dec 2020, closes 10 Mar 2021
Up to $25 million is available to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that:
- Stream 1: utilise existing evidence to develop or improve approaches for the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer, cancers of the pancreas, liver cancer or lung cancer that have a clinically feasible pathway to implementation
- Stream 2: enable approaches for the early diagnosis of cancers with unknown primary site that have a clinically feasible pathway to implementation
View Improving Diagnosis in Cancers with Low Survival Rates scheme
2020 Quality, Safety and Effectiveness of Medicine Use and Medicine Intervention by Pharmacists
Opens 10 Nov 2020, closes 23 Feb 2021
Up to $13 million is available to support medical research and medical innovation projects that create or adapt technologies, mechanisms or approaches for improving the quality, safety and effectiveness of medicine use and medicine intervention by pharmacists in primary health and transitions of care.
2020 Primary Health Care Research Data Infrastructure
Opens 10 Nov 2020, closes 23 feb 2021
Up to $10 million is available to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that create and/or apply novel approaches in using research data infrastructure in primary health care settings to improve access, quality, safety and efficiency
View PHCR Data Infrastructure scheme
2020 Maternal Health and First 2000 Days, Early Childhood, and Exercise and Nutrition
Opens now, closes 3 February 2021
Up to $12 million is available to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that: (1) foster new discoveries that lead to practice changes in community and clinical settings; (2) increase collaboration across academic disciplines, policy makers and health services to better understand the social, cognitive and emotional aspects of people’s health choices; (3) develop guidance, tools and interventions to support Australians to adopt positive behaviour change and to live active and healthy lives, and (4) improve health outcomes for Australians living with chronic and complex disease through innovative public health approaches, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and for, disadvantaged regional and rural and culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
View 2020 Maternal Health and First 2000 Days, Early Childhood, and Exercise and Nutrition scheme
2020 Efficient Use of Existing Medicines
Opens now, closes 3 February 2021
Up to $7.5 million is available to support Australian medical research projects that conduct clinical trials to address one of the following topics: (1) safer and more efficient ways to use high-cost medicines for one or more specific indications without compromising effectiveness
priority areas include biological agents and other high-cost medicines (2) other therapeutic indications for existing medicines that are not currently approved by the TGA priority areas include off-patent and other low-cost medicines.View Efficient Use of Existing Medicines
2020 Childhood Cancer
Opens now, closes 3 February 2021
Up to $9 million is available to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians by building the evidence base to accelerate development of new options for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer in children and adolescents.
2020 International Clinical Trial Collaboration
Round 2: Opens now, closes 3 March 2021
Up to $6.3 million of funding is available per round in 2020-21.
The objectives of this grant opportunity are: (1)to utilise clinical trials to promote Australian involvement in international collaborative investigator-initiated clinical trials research through the establishment and co-ordination of clinical trial site/s in Australia. (2) to 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.
Coronavirus Response - 2020 Vaccine Candidate Research - Round 3
Opens now, closes 10 March 2021
Up to $13.65 million is available to to accelerate the development of promising COVID-19 prophylactic (disease-preventing) vaccine candidates for which research and development is already underway.
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Helpful Links
Successful MRFF Proposal Library
Register your Notice of Intent (NOI)
Accepting and Managing your MRFF Grant
Useful media links
MTPConnect's 'Preparing Successful Commercilisation Funding Applications' webinar
- UoM MRFF Success Stories
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MRFF Strategy and Priority Areas
MRFF Governance in Summary:
- The Medical Research Future Fund Act 2015 sets out rules for the fund, including the establishment of the Australian Medical Research Advisory Board (AMRAB) and compels it to consult the public. AMRAB sets the strategy and priorities for the Medical Research Future Fund and consults the public regularly before updating these.
- AMRAB sets the Australian Medical Research and Innovation Strategy every 5 years. It takes into account Australia's health needs and areas that need greater investment. The current Strategy (2016-2021) can be found here.