The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funds priority-driven research in response to identified health priority areas to create a healthier future for Australians through relevant and targeted research initiatives. The grants include several large one-off priority-driven grant opportunities, including special initiative grant opportunities and Centres of Research Excellence (CRE) grants for health priority areas. 

Using mixed methods, the evaluation assesses how effectively the grants foster national research collaboration to provide an evidence base to identify the best practice approaches to designing priority-driven grant opportunities to achieve national research collaboration.

It found strong support for collaboration, with 81% reporting improved research outcomes and over 70% of successful applicants viewing the grants as effective. Key enablers and barriers were identified and seven recommendations are proposed to strengthen future grant opportunities.

Key recommendations

• Improve guidance on the characteristics of better practice collaboration and how it will be assessed in priority-driven grant opportunities.
• Increase the opportunity for applicants to receive feedback and provide clarification to peer reviewers during the grant application process.
• Consider increasing the size of funding and/or reducing the maximum number of named chief investigators allowed on each funding call.
• Consider adjusting grant requirements and/or selection criteria to encourage research teams to increase the opportunity for a wider range of researchers to be involved in grant activities.