The Business Council of Australia (BCA) welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the draft National Health and Medical Research Strategy 2026-2036 (National Strategy). The BCA represents more than 120 of Australia’s leading businesses, employing around 1.1 million people, including businesses that deliver health and care services.
The BCA welcomes the Australian Government’s efforts to establish the National Strategy. We welcome this work being undertaken by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing as well as other related work around research and development (R&D), such as the Strategic Examination of R&D (SERD). We support the purpose of the National Strategy, particularly aligning with these other strategic initiatives and reviews.
Australia’s long-term productivity and prosperity depend on our ability to turn research into outcomes. Australia has long been a world leader in health and medical research. Our world class universities, highly trained workforce and clinical trials programs, have all contributed to these advancements. It is Australia’s strength. We have been at the forefront of some of the latest discoveries such as spray-on skin, the cochlear implant and the cervical cancer vaccine.
While Australia’s health and medical research capabilities are strong, translation into commercial outcomes remains a challenge. Global advances — particularly in genomics — are moving quickly, and Australia must move with equal pace, backed by a clear plan to attract and retain top researchers and investment.
The BCA has long advocated for globally competitive settings to supercharge our R&D system, such as in:
- Seize the moment
- Accelerating Australia’s AI Agenda
- Better Regulation
- Supporting a Healthy and Productive Nation
- Strategic Examination of Research and Development
- Unlocking Australia’s R&D potential
- Strategic Examination of Research and Development Issues Papers
The BCA’s health and care economy blueprint, Supporting a Healthy and Productive Nation, outlines how medical research and technology is funded and delivered in Australia. Our efforts to be a world leader in health and medical research is hampered by a lack of connection between research, translation, and commercialisation, as well as a complex system and limited business support.
The National Strategy broadly aligns with many of the key principles the BCA continues to advocate for to build a strong R&D system for the future. More broadly, the National Strategy should incorporate the following principles, which are expanded upon in our submission, to have a positive impact:
- Alignment and consolidation
- Clear accountability and responsibility
- Clear pathway to facilitate each stage from research to commercialisation
- Collaboration with the private and not-for-profit sectors is crucial
- Data and digital infrastructure
- Flexible funding and certainty
- Guidance and implementation
- Harmonisation
- Improved market access
- Role of the consumer/patient
More broadly, we must do all we can to ensure Australia remains internationally competitive to attract R&D investment by:
- Committing to increasing R&D spend, with an aspirational goal of 3 per cent of GDP.
- Actioning the recommendations in the BCA’s Unlocking Australia’s R&D potential report to ensure Australia is globally recognised to invest in and undertake research.
- Expediting the development of a National Strategy to provide certainty to researchers. This strategy should address the commercialisation of research and scaling new models of care.
- Providing stronger incentives and better coordination for research and development between industry, universities and government.
- Reforming the R&D Tax Incentive to ensure Australia remains a leading destination for R&D.
- Abolishing the R&D expenditure threshold or, at a minimum, raise it to $250 million with indexation to attract greater investment.
- Introducing a collaboration premium of up to 20 per cent to incentivise partnerships between industry, public research organisations and universities.
- Expediting the establishment of the Australian Centre for Disease Control and expanding its remit to include prevention, including as part of the horizon scanning work.
- Investing in early intervention, research, innovation and prevention to cultivate a healthy and more productive nation.
- Empowering consumers to manage their health and wellbeing by supporting consumer-centred care.
This is a significant opportunity to ensure the settings are effective to enable Australia to continue to be a world leader in R&D. Reform will require people, processes, technology and cultural change. Governments can sponsor change, but all stakeholders, including providers, must deliver and embed these changes.
A nationally consistent approach to R&D will improve business investment, commercialisation, and the systems that support innovation, while ensuring Australians remain healthy and productive. This National Strategy must build on the strengths of Australia’s existing R&D industry.