The NSW Office for Health and Medical Research is now accepting applications for their NSW Spinal Cord Injury Research Grants, which are the result of intense advocacy work by SpinalCure Australia and its supporters.
Grants up to $2.5 million will be provided to innovative research projects that “improve the understanding of spinal cord injury, including potential cure” and “improve the quality of life for individuals with spinal cord injury,” OHMR explains in the Grant Guidelines.
Applications will be open until March 15, 2020, with the successful candidates announced and commencement of funding scheduled for May 2020 for a three to five-year duration.
A total funding pool of up to $15 million is available for the grants.
SpinalCure was given the opportunity to present the case for State Government support, and after careful consultation with the SCI community – including people with SCI, patient advocacy and service groups, clinicians, researchers and our expert panel of scientific advisors – we submitted a considered proposal to the Government imploring urgent investment in research to improve patient outcomes and help move us closer to the cure.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian, the Hon. Brad Hazzard MP and the Hon Dominic Perrottet MP heard our plea and the $15 million funding was announced in the NSW State Budget in June this year.
The news was received with much enthusiasm by SpinalCure and the broader SCI community.
SpinalCure Australia CEO Duncan Wallace can’t wait to see the money allocated to ground-breaking projects.
“We expect to see projects funded that will get us closer to a cure for SCI and hopefully see the first Australian patients recovering significant function,” said Wallace.
This funding will support projects that meet the gaps in spinal cord injury research in “basic science, early intervention and improved function,” the OHMR website explains.
- Basic science — extending knowledge of promising cure-focused research, for example neurological functioning, neurostimulation, neurogenesis, neuropathology and pharmacology.
- Early intervention after spinal cord injury, for example, controlling the inflammatory response.
- Improve functioning, for example, bowel, bladder, motor, pain, sleep and mental health.
Applications will be assessed by international and inter-state scientists.
All research projects “should have the potential to lead to changes in clinical practice or policy in the short or long term and the expected pathway for this to occur will need to be clearly described in the application,” says OHMR in its Grants Guidelines.
You can find more information here:
Office for Health and Medical Research | Spinal Cord Injury Research Grants