A total of $78 million is being invested into the health of New Zealanders through the government’s funding body, the Health Research Council.
The Health Research Council (HRC) has announced the recipients of its latest funding round. This year the HRC is funding 50 new projects worth a total of $56 million and four new programmes at more than $5 million each. The council is also funding 14 Emerging Researcher First Grants ($2.02 million total)
The HRC is the Crown agency responsible for administering the New Zealand Government’s investment in health research. Recipients include researchers from universities, independent research institutes and District Health Boards.
Examples of funded projects include: A clinical trial of nasal gel to prevent the common cold, developing computer games to combat neurodegeneration and exploring the possibility that owning a pet is a risk factor for superbug infections.
The four major research programmes receiving HRC funding (each receiving almost $5 million over five years) are:
- Healthy pregnancy, healthy babies (Professor David Grattan, University of Otago, Dunedin)
- Urate and gout: genetic control, environmental and drug interactions (Associate Professor Tony Merriman, University of Otago, Dunedin)
- Heart failure: Markers and management (Professor Mark Richards, University of Otago, Christchurch)
- Biomarker-guided drug targeting of the tumour microenvironment in radiotherapy ( Professor William Wilson, the University of Auckland)
A full list of funded projects can found on the HRC website.
Media coverage of the recipients announced over the last month includes:
Stuff.co.nz: Government boosts health research funding
Idealog: Health researchers awarded $56 million in new funding
Otago Daily Times: On the trail of a treatment
Otago Daily Times: Burma tuberculosis research has NZ relevance
NewstalkZB: Scientist recieves grant to study infected mice
Otago Daily Times: $150k grants for research