Director’s report

Financial support for this groundbreaking research in a rapidly changing landscape is vital. I’m pleased to report we achieved significant NHMRC funding success in 2019—with six Investigator grants, nine Ideas grants and one Synergy grant awarded.

The new Hudson Institute Strategic Plan, 2019–2023, emphasises the value of providing an inspiring environment for our researchers to succeed. As part of this plan, we established the Hudson Institute Emerging Leaders program to provide our early career researchers with comprehensive leadership training and mentoring. I’m immensely proud of this program and what it will achieve, not only for our talented young researchers, but for the Institute and future healthcare.

The generous support of all our philanthropic partners remains pivotal to our research. We are continuing our program to change the terrible statistics for childhood brain cancer, in partnership with the Children’s Cancer Foundation, who committed an additional $4.9 million for Phase II of the Hudson Monash Paediatric Precision Medicine Program. The Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation raised invaluable funds for our ovarian cancer research programs, and we witnessed the incredible generosity and power of individual fundraising from the Metafit fitness community in support of stomach cancer research. We continue to drive innovation and ensure our discoveries reach patients, in collaboration with our clinical research partner, Monash Health. I am grateful to them, as well as our industry and philanthropic partners, and I thank our researchers, clinicians and students for their passion and dedication to improving people’s lives and the health of our community.