December 10, 2018

Funding Innovation: Small Research Grants

“I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts
– Bill Gates

This year, sixteen applications for funding were received for Round 21 of the Small Research Grants Program. With support from the Northern Health Foundation, five projects were chosen, receiving a total funding of $22,161.62.

Peter Brooks, Head of Research at Northern Health, explains the significance of the funding program.

“The Small Grants Scheme at Northern Health is very important as it can allow someone to take that idea they have had, get some preliminary data and then develop the project into a submission for larger amounts of funding,” he says.

The recipients are:

Name: Mr Russell Hodgson

Role: Specialist HPB & General Surgeon

Title: Laparoscopic Intra-Abdominal Pressure Study: A double blinded randomised controlled trial

Award: $5,000.00

Russell Hodgson and Darren Lowen

Name: Penny Ramsden

Role: Clinical School Coordinator – Nursing

Title: Evaluation of RUSON model of assisted patient care

Award: $3,000.00

Name: Marinda Brooks

Role: Senior Speech Pathologist

Title: Improving patient swallowing outcomes by credentialing of staff in Fibreoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing (FEES)

Award: $4,862.62

Marinda Brooks

Name: Edmund Leahy

Role: Senior Clinician Physiotherapist

Title: Effect of metabolic syndrome on clinical and health service outcomes for people with osteoarthritis

Award: $4,999.00

Edmund Leahy

Name: Mr Neil Strugnell

Role: Associate Director of General Surgery; Consultant General Surgeon

Title: Negative Pressure Wound Therapy for Emergency Laparotomy – A Randomised Controlled Trial

Award: $4,300.00

Neil Strugnell

The applications were assessed on the scientific merit of the proposal, as well as the potential to increase the contribution of Northern Health’s research to the wider community. They were also assessed on their ability to build research capacity and expertise, provide new and emerging researchers with opportunities to initiate their research, and the appropriateness of the proposed expenditure.

“As always, it is difficult to decide who will be successful, particularly with the highly competitive field we had this year, so congratulations to the projects that were funded – and those who were not successful – keep developing your project and hopefully we can fund it next time,” Peter says.

To learn more about each of the awarded research projects, click here.