Monique Ryan will hold a press conference today with medical and university researchers to ask the government to unlock funding from the medical research fund to you know, fund research.

Ryan has asked about this issue multiple times in the parliament and has been told the government is working through it. But it is one of the issues with these ‘funds’ that became super popular in the Howard years – instead of setting up funding direct to groups and policies, the governments set up funds and then rely on the dividends providing that funding. But the fund managers want the funds to keep making as much money as humanly possible, so they don’t like to release the dividends, and hence – no one gets any funding.

Ryan will have representatives from the following organisations will be present at the roundtable:

  • The Group of Eight, including researchers from: Monash University, University of Western Australia, University of Adelaide, and the University of Sydney
  • Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes 
  • Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences
  • Australian Academy of Science
  • Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
  • Burnett Institute
  • Lung Foundation Australia
  • George Institute
  • Australasian Leukemia and Lymphoma Group
  • Hudson Institute of Medical Research
  • Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand
  • John Curtin School of Medical Research
  • Research Australia
  • Science and Technology Australia