An evaluation of NHMRC funded Dementia and Diabetes research

As of 2025, it is estimated that approximately 433,300 Australians are living with dementia.¹ This number is projected to increase significantly in the coming decades. Additionally, an estimated 1.7 million Australians are involved in the care of someone living with dementia.

Diabetes affects an even larger portion of the population. In 2022, approximately 1.3 million Australians were living with diabetes, which equates to roughly 5.3% of the population.²

These statistics highlight the significant impact of both dementia and diabetes on the Australian population, and research can play a vital role in improving the understanding, detection, diagnosis, prevention and treatments of these diseases. As the Australian Government’s key entity for managing investment in health and medical research, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) plays an important role in this task.

An evaluation of NHMRC-funded dementia and diabetes research delves into the outputs, outcomes and pathways to impact arising from NHMRC-supported research in the areas of dementia and diabetes by analysing data captured by Scopus-indexed publications. It employs AI-driven analytics and narrative techniques combined with novel bibliometric methods to identify impacts or pathways to impact. The report also benchmarks NHMRC's contributions against major international funders, offering insights from 2000 to 2023.

Key findings: Research Impact

• Novel approach combining next generation bibliometrics and generative AI identified 17 cases of economic, environmental, social, or health impacts.
• NHMRC knowledge impacts drive innovation in cutting-edge fields like AI-enhanced brain imaging, bioengineering, and gene editing.
• Preliminary findings, using a bibliometric/LLM approach, show NHMRC's role in advancing cost-effective interventions that enhance well-being or prevent disease.
• Impact case studies showcase the breadth of NHMRC's contributions across dementia and diabetes domains and intervention types.
• NHMRC-supported prevention programs have helped people with diabetes achieve lifestyle changes, including weight losses of 8% or more and empowered these individuals with greater knowledge and control over their disease.

Key findings: Research Outcomes

• 9% of dementia and 15% of diabetes publications were cited in policy documents, surpassing global comparators.
• 4% of dementia and 8% of diabetes publications were cited in clinical guidelines. This corresponds to 153 clinical trials for dementia and 216 for diabetes.
• NHMRC has contributed to 44 commercialised or trademarked dementia interventions and 101 commercialised or trademarked diabetes interventions.
• 13 dementia and diabetes Australian startups have benefited from NHMRC funding.

Key findings: Research Outputs

• The NHMRC supported research demonstrated strong publication outputs in dementia (3.0% of NHRMC publication output) and diabetes (4.2% of NHRMC publication output) research, more than 2 times the global average.
• The NHMRC supported research has contributed to 445 distinct dementia interventions and 490 diabetes interventions since 2000.
• 5% of NHMRC Diabetes papers shared their data, compared to 12.9% for funders worldwide.
• There are more than 1,000 patent families citing NHRMC diabetes and dementia research.

Testimonial from NHMRC

Since its inception in 1937 the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has worked to improve the health of the Australian population.

For more than 80 years, NHMRC and the generations of researchers it has funded have made significant contributions to our health and wellbeing in a wide and diverse range of diseases and health issues including dementia and diabetes.

Research is a long game. It can take many years for a fundamental discovery to lead to a new approach to prevention or treatment of disease, and it can take many more years for a new health intervention or medical product to be implemented or become available for use.

This long journey reflects many factors: from the complexity of biological processes and the need for further discovery to light the way forward, to the dependence on different skills, resources and public or private investment at each stage of development and implementation.

NHMRC recognises the importance of evaluating and reporting on its research activities. While it is challenging to measure research impact, it is a key task for NHMRC to report on the public benefits of its investments in research.

NHMRC thanks Elsevier and the staff who worked on this report and is pleased to share the outputs, outcomes and impacts arising from NHMRC-supported research that it contains.

¹ Dementia Australia

² Australian Bureau of Statistics