2027 NHMRC Biennial Awards

The NHMRC Biennial Awards celebrate leadership and outstanding contributions to the health and medical research sector.

Each award recognises a group or an individual whose work has made a special impact in areas of importance to NHMRC and the Australian community. Award recipients will be recognised and are invited to attend NHMRC’s Research Excellence Awards, one of the most prestigious events on the Australia’s health and medical research calendar.

The award categories are:

• Consumer Involvement Award
• Ethics and Integrity Award
• Research Quality Award
• Outstanding Contribution Award*
• Peer Review Excellence Awards*
• Science to Art Award. 

*These award categories will be identified by the office of NHMRC and are by invitation only.

If you know an individual or team making a difference, we encourage you to submit a nomination and help us celebrate their achievements.

2027 NHMRC Biennial Awards nominations are now open!

NHMRC is seeking nominations for outstanding individuals, groups of individuals or institutions/organisations from the health and medical research community for consideration in the 2027 Biennial Awards.

Nominations close 5:00PM AEDT, Friday 11 December 2026. More information about each award and links to nomination pages (where applicable) are provided below.

NHMRC Consumer Involvement Award

The NHMRC Consumer Involvement Award recognises an individual or an organisation that has made a long term contribution to consumer and community involvement in health and medical research.

Nominees are considered strong advocates for health and medical research and inspirational role models for consumer involvement, who want to improve and support community interactions with research.

Nominations for the 2027 NHMRC Consumer Involvement Award are now open on our website.

Pictured recipient of the 2025 Consumer Involvement Award, Professor James St John with Mr Perry Cross, founder of the Perry Cross Spinal Research Foundation.

NHMRC Ethics and Integrity Award

The NHMRC Ethics and Integrity Award recognises an individual, a group of individuals, or an organisation who has made a significant contribution to supporting the highest ethical standards in Australian health and medical research. 

We are seeking nominees that have demonstrated innovation in the formulation of ethics and/or integrity policy, leadership in the formulation of ethics and/or integrity standards, or services above and beyond the normal requirement of Human Research Ethics Committee membership.

Nominations for the 2027 NHMRC Ethics and Integrity Award are now open on our website.

Pictured recipient of the 2025 Ethics and Integrity Award, Professor Fabienne Mackay, Director of St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research.

NHMRC Research Quality Award

The NHMRC Research Quality Award recognises the outstanding contribution of an individual, team or organisation who has made a significant contribution to supporting and/or uplifting the quality of Australian health and medical research beyond their own program of research.

The award is intended to reinforce the importance of institutional culture to the conduct of high quality research.

Nominations for the 2027 NHMRC Research Quality Award are now open on our website.

Pictured recipient of the 2025 Research Quality Award, Guunu-maana (Heal) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program team at The George Institute for Global Health.

NHMRC Science to Art Award

The NHMRC Science to Art Award recognises outstanding imagery that has arisen from NHMRC funded research. Imaging is now an integral technology in medical research and while they are scientifically important, they can also be aesthetically powerful.

Submissions for the 2027 NHMRC Science to Art Award are now open on our website. 

Pictured the 2025 Science to Art Award winning artwork ‘Battleground beneath the skin’ from Associate Professor Arutha Kulasinghe at the Frazer Institute, University of Queensland.

This is a digital image of skin cancer located in the head and neck region. The skin cells are shown in bright red, with the tumour pockets in dull red surrounded by yellow. Immune cells (including macrophages and lymphocytes) are patrolling the tissue in green and magenta.

The image was captured using spatial proteomics, which was the 2024 Nature Method of the Year, and allows the visualisation of up to 100 biomarkers at the single cellular level across the entire tissue section. Referred to as the ‘Google Maps’ approach to tissue profiling, this revolutionary approach can be used to map every cell across different tumour types and tissues to unravel why some tumours respond to treatment while others do not.

Better understanding of the tumour microenvironment for each individual patient would allow for treatment and therapy personalisation to improve the care and outcomes for individuals affected by cancer.

NHMRC Outstanding Contribution Award

The NHMRC Outstanding Contribution Award recognises outstanding long term contributions, individual commitment and support to NHMRC. 

Please note that nominations for this award are by invitation only.

NHMRC Peer Review Excellence Awards

The NHMRC Peer Review Excellence Awards recognises the outstanding contribution of an individual who demonstrates their commitment to NHMRC’s principles of peer review. This includes, but is not limited to, extent of contributions, enthusiasm to participate, quality of assessment, willingness to take on additional requests, and their commitment as mentors. 

This award is given to one senior/experienced peer reviewer and one early or mid-career researcher peer reviewer.

Please note that nominees will be identified and selected by the office of NHMRC.

Nominate for the 2027 Biennial Awards

We encourage you to share this information about the Biennial Awards with your networks and if you know someone who could be of interest, please encourage them to nominate. 

Nominations close 5:00PM AEDT, on Friday 11 December 2026.

If you have any questions, please contact nhmrc.awards@nhmrc.gov.au.

More information will be available over the coming months, so continue to check our website and social media channels for further updates.