As a cardiologist and researcher, my career has been dedicated to working with others to solve complex, life-threatening health challenges – either on the wards or in the lab. Throughout these years, I've witnessed a fundamental truth: when we make significant breakthroughs, whether in heart disease or any field of health research and innovation, those advances invariably emerge from effective collaboration.
When research teams work in isolation, breakthrough discoveries take longer to reach patients. When infrastructure is duplicated across institutions, precious resources are wasted. When communication channels between industry, academia, and healthcare providers remain limited, transformative ideas fail to cross-pollinate.
This is precisely why I am energised and optimistic about the future of health and medical research in our state with the launch of the NSW Health Research and Innovation Strategy.
The Strategy represents a shift in how we approach research and innovation by bringing together the entire health and medical research community – industry, local health districts, universities, medical research institutes and government. At its core, this Strategy is about creating a unified ecosystem where resources, knowledge and talent flow freely between institutions to address our most pressing health challenges.
Building on the state's strong foundation
NSW already has all the right foundations for success: world-class research institutes, outstanding research facilities integrated with the health system, a culturally and genetically diverse population, and reliable research governance frameworks. These elements provide an incredibly strong starting point for our collaborative journey.
The Strategy builds upon these strengths by calling us to devise new ways of working together to discover new cures and practices, to share our assets and talents, to ensure that every link in the research chain is strong, and – perhaps most importantly – to be equitable and prioritise the wellbeing of our people and our patients. In essence, we are being called upon to fully realise the promise of our state's research and innovation potential.
There are already early signs of success as we see the Strategy in action. Clinical trials leaders across NSW are already working collectively on key interventions including implementing a statewide participant recruitment register, standardising ethics reviews, consolidating trial coordination functions and expanding community involvement.
These low-cost, scalable improvements will attract greater national and international investment, accelerate trial start-up times, and deliver faster health benefits to patients across NSW and beyond.
A call to collaborative action
By working together across institutional boundaries; by sharing our knowledge and resources; and by maintaining an unwavering focus on patient outcomes, we can accelerate discovery, improve healthcare delivery, and cement NSW's position as a global leader in health and medical research.
In my role as NSW Chapter Co-Chair and national President-Elect of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI), I collaborate with most of NSW's medical research institutes. They, like research institutes across the nation, are facing tough times as the cost of doing their research far outstrips the federal grant funding for that research. It is clear we can only solve this and many other ‘systems’ problems by adopting this system-wide, collaborative approach.
I can confidently say the NSW Health Research and Innovation Strategy is poised to transform healthcare through collaboration. The foundation is laid, the strategy is clear, the commitment is present, and the future of medical research in NSW has never looked brighter.
