Over $15 million for research collaborations to tackle healthcare policies and practice

These successful grant recipients will share in over $15.6 million in funding under the recent cycle of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Partnership Project scheme.

The Partnership Project scheme funds collaborations between researchers, local governments, health service providers and not-for-profit organisations to work together to define questions, undertake research, and interpret and translate the findings into health policy and practice.

With a focus on improving youth mental health services, Professor Debra Rickwood from the University of Canberra will define, design, and test a novel, non-intrusive, objective way to track real-time outcomes in digital chat-based therapeutic support.

This research program will measure outcomes being achieved for young people who are accessing digital mental health services and will develop an entirely new way to improve the quality and delivery of these much-needed services.

Professor Rickwood will lead a diverse research team to harness the technology itself to derive measures of client change during and between online sessions, as well as clinician actions that contribute to such change.

'With headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation as our service partner through its eheadspace service, we will use real-time machine learning techniques to determine how young people experience their online service interactions, rather than a post-appointment survey to collect data,' said Professor Rickwood.

Consumer of eheadspace and youth advocate, Joey, said that online mental health support is a vital resource for so many young people, as it is more widely accessible by navigating geographical location and wait times.

'This research gives attention to the needs of young people and centres young people in service delivery design and practice,

'I, with many other young people, am excited for this research and the amazing implications it will have on young people, by providing quality online services.' said Joey.

Other funding provided through this cycle of Partnership Project grants includes:

• Professor Sally Brinkman and team from the University of South Australia will determine whether a program based on self-regulated learning has positive effects on student success and wellbeing.
• Professor Penelope Hasking and team from Curtin University will partner with Beyond Blue, headspace, Department of Health WA and Lifeline Western Australia to provide alternatives to suicidal behaviours for Australian university students.
• Dr Rachel Toovey of the University of Melbourne will lead a research team to implement and evaluate a co-designed cycling program (CycLink) to improve participation of children with disability in their local communities.

Projects funded today will be supported by many diverse funding partners, contributing a further $28.6 million across the 12 projects, bringing the total investment in the projects to $44.2 million. 

All the funding details announced today are available at outcomes of funding rounds.

Quotes attributable to NHMRC CEO, Professor Steve Wesselingh:

• ‘The Partnership Project scheme provides exciting opportunities for researchers and policy makers to work collaboratively together to create improved health policies and healthcare services.’
• ‘Driven by a shared goal of improving the health of all Australians, these projects demonstrate the power of collaboration and how it can positively impact access, equity and delivery of healthcare across the nation.’