Driving Collaborative Research for Lasting Health Impact

The Health Translation SA (HTSA) Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Catalyst Grant Scheme provides vital funding to South Australian research teams, with the aim of preparing them for future MRFF opportunities. By aligning with MRFF’s Principles and Priorities, the Scheme helps strengthen South Australia’s competitiveness in the national health research landscape, funding projects that demonstrate a clear commitment to collaboration and research translation.

Dr. Rebecca Perry, HTSA’s Lead for Priority Driven Research Translation Support, said, “The Catalyst Grant Scheme is about building a pipeline of research that is primed to make a difference. We want our teams to not only apply for MRFF funding but to do so with projects that are informed by deep collaboration and aligned with real community needs.”

What makes the Catalyst Scheme unique among other funding sources across South Australia is its emphasis on cross-sector collaboration. Each funded project must involve meaningful partnerships with health services, research organisations, and the community, engaging both consumers and clinicians to address unmet healthcare needs in South Australia.

At HTSA's Stakeholder Forum in October, several 2023 Catalyst projects, funded by The Hospital Research Foundation Group and the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation, showcased the significant impact that the Catalyst Scheme has made on their health research.

Professor Tracey Wade (Flinders University) and her team shared insights from their work on developing an online, family-based group treatment for parents of children with eating disorders. This initiative, intended as a first-line treatment, has been deeply shaped by a co-design process involving clinicians and parents, ensuring the intervention meets real needs.

The project has also led to the submission of an application to the MRFF Childhood Mental Health Grant Opportunity in collaboration with two interstate services. Professor Wade expressed her gratitude, saying, “I am thankful to Health Translation SA for giving us a chance to dip our toes into this water, to give this project a try, with learnings along the way setting us up for success in an MRFF grant.”

Dr Anthony Porter (Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN)), who has been instrumental in creating the first-ever academic and clinician-led AI scribe software for hospital emergency and outpatient departments, echoed this sentiment. He also emphasised the value of Catalyst funding to support clinician-led research, stating that “We definitely wouldn’t have started this without their (HTSA and The Hospital Research Foundation Group) support. After a 25-year break from research, no one else would have given me a grant.”

Despite facing various implementation challenges, Dr Porter’s team is well-positioned to continue researching the software's effectiveness in hospitals, supporting its potential scale-up in SA’s public hospitals and for other public hospitals across Australia.

Dr Kate Bartel’s (Riverland Academy of Clinical Excellence) presentation also highlighted the impact of Catalyst funding on being able to kick-start a project led by the Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network. “It’s allowed the project team to implement stage one of the project which is aimed at delivering the right mental health care, at the right time, to rural people,” Dr Bartel said.

By utilising the Care Mappr software—developed by researchers at Flinders University—the team has been able to connect rural service providers through this platform and understand the needs of rural healthcare professionals, consumers, and carers. These findings also informed an MRFF Million Minds Mental Health Research Mission grant application aimed at testing the platform's feasibility in the Riverland Region. If successful, the team hopes to identify sub-groups that benefit most and evaluate pathways for national scalability.

During the event, HTSA also awarded over $400,000 to the seven new 2024 Catalyst projects, thanks to the generous support of The Hospital Research Foundation Group, Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation, and Cancer Council SA. These projects stood out not only for their research aims but also for their dedication to consumer engagement and collaboration, both within South Australia and beyond.

The 2024 grant recipients included:

The Hospital Research Foundation Group

• Professor Shilpa Jesudason (CALHN) –The kidney as a window to pregnancy and future health

• Dr Rachel Elovaris (SAHMRI) – Optimising culturally safe and self-determined management of gestational diabetes mellitus among Aboriginal women in South Australia, assisting child health outcomes

• Dr Amy Hutchison (University of Adelaide) – Continuous Glucose Monitoring-Assisted Remote Telehealth Dietetics to Empower people with Type 2 Diabetes and improve Cardiovascular Outcomes (CARE-T2D)

• Prof. Stacey George – (Flinders University) Co-designing an integrated care model to improve experiences and outcomes in the Chronic Disease Preventive Health System in Northern Adelaide

Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation

• Dr Lito Papanicolas (CALHN) – Preventing neonatal sepsis treatment failure: Precision antibiotic therapy through pathogen genomic screening

• Dr Sarah Wallwork (UniSA) – Co-designing the VITAL Project (validation, understanding, and graded, valued activity prescription) for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

Cancer Council SA

• Dr Amanda Lumsden (UniSA) – Developing a predictive tool for ovarian cancer through patient-centred symptom data collection

HTSA is pleased to share that all three funding partners will be supporting the HTSA MRFF Catalyst Grant Scheme again in 2025, reflecting their commitment to fostering innovative health research in South Australia.

Stay tuned for details on the 2025 funding round, expected to launch in April/May, as we look forward to seeing the next wave of impactful research ideas and collaborations.

Photo: Successful 2024 HTSA MRFF Catalyst Grant Scheme project team members + funding partner representatives