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04 March 2011The Lowitja Institute is Australia's National Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research.

It is an innovative research body that brings together Aboriginal organisations, academic institutions and government agencies to facilitate collaborative, evidence-based research into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

The Institute will host the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (CRCATSIH), the successor organisation for the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health, until June 2014. After that time, the Institute will fund research and implement programs in its own right, thereby providing a permanent organisation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research.

The Lowitja Institute is dedicated to:

• Working with Australia’s leading health research institutions, policymakers and community organisations to ensure world-class health research is targeted at areas where it can have the most impact in improving the health and lives of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
• Ensuring that research outcomes are disseminated widely through knowledge exchange, and that promising interventions identified by research are implemented and evaluated.
• Collaborating with Australian educational/training organisations to support the expansion of a professional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health – and health research – workforce.

The activities of the Lowitja Institute are overseen by the Board of the National Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research Ltd (the Company), which comprises seven directors, including an independent Chair, the majority of whom are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. The Company is a not-for-profit entity limited by guarantee and structured as a public benevolent institution. 

The Lowitja Institute’s membership comprises CRCATSIH members, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander medical service providers, government departments and statutory bodies, research institutions and private sector entities. See Congress Lowitja for more information about membership.