The Targeted Call for Research (TCR): Reframing Women’s Health 2026 grant opportunity aims to advance high‑quality research that addresses critical gaps in women’s health and transforms how health and medical research is conceptualised, conducted, analysed, and translated. It seeks to strengthen the integration of sex‑ and gender‑based approaches, broaden the understanding of women’s health beyond reproductive and sexual health, generating findings that can inform clinicians, policymakers, industry, and the public. The outcomes of this TCR will catalyse change in women’s health research and produce actionable evidence to improve health outcomes across the life course through innovative, multidisciplinary projects that address priority health issues for women.
The objectives of the TCR are to facilitate research that:
- Improves the quality of sex‑ and gender‑sensitive research design and reporting. Develop, test, or embed methodologies that correctly define and measure sex and gender, incorporate intersectionality, and improve sex- and gender‑disaggregated data and analysis, with sex‑ and gender‑based methodologies integrated as a core component of study design, in alignment with the Statement on Sex, Gender, Variations of Sex Characteristics and Sexual Orientation in Health and Medical Research.
- Addresses priority health issues that disproportionately or differentially affect women. Generate evidence or interventions in high‑burden areas (for example, cardiovascular diseases, mental health, musculoskeletal conditions, dementia, anxiety disorders, menopause, migraine).
- Builds researcher capability and shifts research culture. Implement training, tools, or frameworks that enhance researcher literacy in sex- and gender-methodologies, intersectionality, culturally safe research, including appropriate governance arrangements and codesign approaches that support culturally safe practice.
- Mobilises collaboration and strengthen research ecosystems. Encourage cross‑disciplinary partnerships, integrate consumers and priority populations, and leverage existing datasets (including retrospective and linkage studies) with appropriate sex- and gender-frameworks for innovative women’s health research. Collaboration across institutions, disciplines, and sectors is strongly encouraged.
- Enhances translation into policy, education, and practice. Translate research outputs to inform clinical guidelines, workforce education, regulatory frameworks, health service design, and societal understanding of sex- and gender-impacts on health.
The expected outcomes of the TCR are to:
- Improve sex‑ and gender‑sensitive research practices. Improved research practices, including routine sex-disaggregated data collection, intersectional research methodologies, gender sensitive analysis, and transparent reporting.
- Generate evidence addressing critical gaps in women’s health. New insights, mechanistic understanding, or interventions targeting conditions that disproportionately or differentially affect women.
- Increase national research capability. Enhanced capacity and skills (for example, researcher literacy, intersectionality) among researchers, leading to sustained long-term improvements in women’s health research practice.
- Increase translational impact on the health system. Contributions to clinical guidelines, policy recommendations, practice frameworks, workforce training materials, and/or health service reforms. Implementation science-based approaches that will improve women’s health that can be adopted into health systems are particularly desirable.
Further information about the TCR, its objectives, outcomes, available funds and timeframe is available on GrantConnect.
