The peak medicine lobby uses the pandemic to make its budget case

“While no country can produce everything it needs and its population wants, in a time of crisis a strong capacity in research, innovation and manufacturing enables a nation to shift its capacity to meet areas of critical need … . The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated Australia’s deficiencies in some critical areas and we congratulate the government on its swift response, identifying the importance of strengthening our manufacturing capacity in specific areas, including medical products. The challenge is now getting those actions underway efficiently.”

RA’s many 2021 budget bids include;

* “real-term” increases in funding for National Health and Medical Research Council and Medical Research Future Fund research in the budget and for the forward estimates

* a “substantial increase” in funding for indirect costs of research and the Research Training Programme

* funding for indirect costs of research in medical research institutes

And then there’s the proposal “most likely”

“A further $1bn of short-term funding should be provided to universities through the Research Support Programme to offset the expected continued impact of reduced international student revenue in the 2022 calendar year.” CMM suspects this will turn up in many more research lobby bids.