NHMRC Partnership Project

An NHMRC Partnership Project is a competitively awarded grant, funded by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, that specifically requires a health policy-maker, manager or clinician-practice partner to co-design and co-fund the research alongside the investigator team. It exists to translate research evidence directly into health policy and health-service practice, not to fund open-ended investigator-driven discovery research — that distinction is the scheme’s whole reason for being, and it is what separates a Partnership Project from NHMRC’s other major funding lines.

What makes a Partnership Project different

Per NHMRC’s own scheme description, the Partnership Project funding line “provides funding and support to create new opportunities for researchers and policy makers to work together” to answer a shared, practice-relevant question. Two features are non-negotiable: a genuine partner organisation — a health department, a hospital or health service, a peak clinical body — has to be part of the application from the start, not added afterward, and that partner has to co-contribute funding or in-kind support rather than simply endorsing the project. NHMRC’s own funding-round announcements illustrate the ratio this can take: one recent round saw the Partnership Project scheme contribute $13.7 million from NHMRC, matched by a further $17.4 million committed by the funding partners themselves — more than the NHMRC contribution alone.

Funding and administration

Individual Partnership Project grants have run up to $1.5 million, over project terms as long as five years, administered like NHMRC’s other schemes through the Sapphire grants-management platform. As with any co-funded scheme, the exact funding cap, round timing and partner-contribution requirements are set out in the current round’s specific grant guidelines and should be checked directly against NHMRC’s published guidelines before an application is scoped, rather than assumed to be fixed indefinitely.

How it differs from NHMRC’s other schemes

NHMRC’s Ideas Grants fund investigator-driven research on any health or medical question, judged on scientific merit alone, with no policy-partner requirement. Investigator Grants fund a researcher’s salary and a broad program of work tied to their track record, again with no partner-organisation requirement. A Partnership Project sits apart from both: eligibility and assessment hinge on the strength of the researcher-partner relationship and the translation pathway into policy or practice, not purely on the research question’s scientific merit in isolation. A proposal with excellent science but no committed policy or practice partner does not fit the Partnership Project scheme — it belongs under Ideas Grants instead.

Example

A team of health services researchers partners with a state health department to co-design a study evaluating a new clinical care pathway, with the department contributing matched cash and in-kind support (staff time, service access, implementation commitment) alongside the NHMRC grant, and a clear plan for the department to adopt the findings into policy. That combination — named partner, co-contribution, a policy or practice translation pathway — is the operational signature of a Partnership Project.

Counter-example

A single investigator-led basic-science study, with strong scientific merit but no health department, hospital or clinical-body partner attached and no intent to translate findings directly into policy or service delivery, belongs under NHMRC’s Ideas Grant scheme, not Partnership Projects, which specifically requires a named, co-funding policy or practice partner.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an NHMRC Partnership Project?

An NHMRC Partnership Project is a grant that funds collaborative research between researchers and a health policy-maker, manager or clinical-practice partner, requiring that partner to co-contribute funding or in-kind support and to be involved in translating the findings into policy or practice.

How is a Partnership Project different from an NHMRC Ideas Grant?

An Ideas Grant funds investigator-driven research judged on scientific merit alone, with no partner requirement. A Partnership Project specifically requires a co-funding policy or practice partner and is judged partly on the strength of that partnership and the plan to translate findings into policy or service delivery.

Does the partner organisation have to provide funding?

Yes — a genuine co-contribution (cash or substantial in-kind support) from the partner organisation is a core requirement, not optional. NHMRC funding-round data shows partner contributions can exceed NHMRC’s own contribution to a round.

How much funding does an NHMRC Partnership Project provide?

Grants have run up to $1.5 million over project terms as long as five years, though the exact cap and terms are set by the current round’s published grant guidelines and should be confirmed directly against NHMRC’s current documentation before applying.