MRFF Emerging Priorities and Consumer-Driven Research Initiative – 2024 Paediatric Brain Cancer Research Grant Opportunity (GO6780)

The Emerging Priorities and Consumer-Driven Research Initiative (the Initiative) aims to enable or support research that improves patient care and translation of new discoveries and encourage collaboration between consumers and researchers. Funding from this Initiative will support the development of new diagnoses, treatments and cures, and the translation of new discoveries into clinical practice.

The objective of the 2024 Paediatric Brain Cancer Research Grant Opportunity is to provide grants of financial assistance to support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that:

  • Stream 1 (Targeted Call for Research): establish a national childhood brain cancer clinical trial consortium including:
    • multidisciplinary approaches involving discovery, pre-clinical, data and psychosocial research that is integrated into clinical trials and can feed back into clinical care decisions
    • multi-institutional collaborations that provide all Australian children, adolescents and young adults with paediatric type brain cancer an opportunity to be involved in a clinical trial
    • partners across the research sector, including academic, health service delivery, and industry
    • international partnerships that will facilitate and enable people in Australia with paediatric brain cancer to access clinical trials conducted in other countries
    • improving data approaches and methodologies that support rapid and collaborative assessment of the effectiveness (safety, efficacy etc) of current and emerging treatments
    • addressing inequities in access to clinical trials, particularly for priority populations
    • a focus on improving quality of life and survivorship outcomes for people in Australia with paediatric brain cancer, including psychosocial and neurocognitive outcomes, in the short and long term.
    • generating knowledge that could inform future health technology assessment
  • Stream 2 (Targeted Call for Research): conduct novel pre-clinical and/or early stage clinical research to improve understanding of paediatric brain cancer and/or generate new therapies and treatments for paediatric brain cancer.

The intended outcome of the research funded by this grant opportunity is to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians by:

  • Stream 1 (Targeted Call for Research): providing access to clinical trials that continuously improve the quality of care available for paediatric brain cancer patients and their families
  • Stream 2 (Targeted Call for Research): generating evidence that will support development of new treatments for paediatric brain cancer

This grant opportunity is being administered by NHMRC on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Health.

Further information on the MRFF is available from the Department of Health and Aged Care.

Details of how to apply including information required for your Grant Proposal, can be found on GrantConnect. NHMRC will inform Eligible Organisations when submission functionality is made available in Sapphire.