Australia sitting on over $1 billion of unused medical research funding as scientists abandon the field
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-09/medical-research-funding-federal-government-cap/106413470
Australia sitting on over $1 billion of unused medical research funding as scientists abandon the field
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-09/medical-research-funding-federal-government-cap/106413470
20 Comments
So the cap was just incompetence on the part of the Morrison government, and Albo has not yet bothered to fix it.
I guess Albo is too busy supporting Israel, paying tithes to the USA, and keeping Australian citizens out of the country.
Can we not throw it on housing?
well why would you stay if all you need to do is invest in property?
>Last year, the National Health and Medical Research Council rejected 91.9 per cent of applications for the ideas grants scheme, despite nearly half being considered “outstanding”.
>Of the 2,347 applicants, only 190 projects were approved.
Why?
Why pursue if it’s only going to be given away to US companies to monitise while the Aussie researchers get a pat on the back and then return to almost abject poverty.
We need to pay researchers properly and reliably rather than making them beg year after year for grants
Ross Gittins said the MRFF was a [dodgy accounting trick ](https://www.smh.com.au/business/medical-research-future-fund-how-the-trick-is-done-20141214-126rpw.html)by Joe Hockey – back in 2014.
My wife spends an inordinate amount of time applying for grants. She’s pleased if she gets $100K, which pays maybe one student for one year. The amount of money being given away is paltry compared to the administration required to achieve it and the value that is gained from it.
This is the back half of the “job ready graduates” scam that lionised the idea of making STEM degrees much cheaper so that it would bolster all this amazing research for Australia. (Whilst at the same time making it harder to get money and successive governments eviscerating the CSIRO.)
Spend more money in Education. Less on NDIS. Everyone benefits from medical breakthroughs
It’s gatekeepers
Fu I’ve got mine and don’t want any one
Yet they give billions to businesses through the R&D tax incentive for business as usual. Have friends who worked on the program and always complained about how poorly the thing was run.
>Last year, the National Health and Medical Research Council rejected 91.9 per cent of applications for the ideas grants scheme, despite nearly half being considered “outstanding”.
I’m much happier now I don’t bother applying. My research is now more of a hobby than serious. Luckily I can still do low cost stuff, just not high impact.
I’ve been looking for a research job since I graduated at the beginning of 2025 – I now work in a pub.
The grants system is frankly incredibly expensive and wasteful bureaucracy that *pretends* to save money. It’s bloated, full of perverse incentives and is *fucking* all forms of research in this country. Grant writing is not easy, not fun and frankly it qualifies as it’s own full time job with the sheer amount of research, writing and editing that goes into doing it right.
Our best and brightest need to be properly incentivised to research and development careers and/or entrepreneurship which is frankly where their abilities are best utilised. Instead our economy and by extension culture pushes them to highest earning professional jobs ie lawyers and doctors who do do important work but are frankly capped in the impact they can have on society.
I did a science degree, took me over a decade to find a use for it, in a completely different field that just required any degree. I’ll be encouraging my kids to do something else, science is crap for jobs.
I’m on the opposite side of the table and see pitches for grants from time to time.
Scientists are generally **terrible** salespeople. It must waste so much of their time doing something that isn’t in their wheelhouse. A cottage industry of useless ‘consultants’ then pops up trying to get them the best prospects for a grant.
It is dumb. Just let science people science.
All you really need to do is vet the garbage or redundant projects and figure out if there’s enough cash to go round.
P.S. The honest answer to every question asking “what are the possible commercial applications?” is: “*I don’t fucking know. The accidental invention of teleportation maybe? Let’s give it a whirl*.”
stay winning, Australia! Don’t give into the sunken cost fallacy 💪unlike me 😞
What are all the Scientist leaving Science for? I hope not Scientology 🙂
But seriously, reading the article I find the title a little bit misleading.
The issue is that scientists/researchers need money via grants to complete their research, but due to a government cap, available funds are not allowed to be distributed & used.
Classic government RED TAPE.