Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI) is the research partner of The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH). MCRI is the largest child health research institute in Australia; globally recognised for child health discoveries. Each year, the Foundation distributes $5 million in donated funds to MCRI to support the most important and innovative laboratory, clinical and public health research. Today, MCRI’s team of more than 1500 researchers combat emerging conditions affecting children, such as allergies, diabetes and obesity, as well as searching for answers to unsolved problems, such as cancer and genetic conditions. Research is a methodical process contributing pieces of knowledge to a very large puzzle. At MCRI, increasing knowledge creates better understanding of conditions, diseases and disorders that affect children, not just in Victoria, but worldwide. The close campus partnership and co-location of MCRI and the hospital fosters an environment where large multi-disciplinary teams of medical professionals from both organisations work together. Researchers are better-placed to discover and decipher puzzle pieces more swiftly, allowing the campus to address unsolved paediatric health problems, and to implement findings into clinical practice more directly.
researchers to respond quickly to the important emerging child health issues. At MCRI, funds are allocated to research projects according to performance and research excellence. This strategy has resulted in research at MCRI flourishing over the last decade. MCRI invests support from The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation to seed fund new research, to the areas of greatest strategic importance and projects that show the greatest prospect of making a significant difference to children’s health. Competitive research income from the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to MCRI has increased tenfold and research outputs (as measured by publications) more than doubled in the period 2002-2011. This growth and continuous improvement is made possible because of MCRI’s unique setting which involves efforts and contributions of all the campus partners; the RCH, The University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics and The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation. The outcomes are important for our local community and also cast a wider net. As a result, The Royal Children’s Hospital campus, with its strong research underpinning, maintains its standing as one of the leading paediatric centres in the world.
Professor Sheena Reilly, Associate Director of Clinical and Public Health at MCRI and Director of Speech Pathology at the RCH explains: “The co-location of research and clinical care demonstrated between the RCH and MCRI is now being recognised globally as best practice. It has many benefits for patients and the medical fraternity, not least that discoveries are being made faster which translates into improved care for children faster too.” The new RCH incorporates the latest in evidence-based design concepts to not only provide world-class clinical care, but also to facilitate faster research translation into healthcare delivery. With double the research space of the previous site, the close proximity of researchers and clinicians results in improved communication and collaboration, allowing
THE ROYAL CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION, MELBOURNE
The Impact of Giving | A Year in Review 2011 -2012
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