Deadline: 29-Oct-2025
The Hospital Research Foundation Group is seeking applications for its Precision Medicine Grant Program to support innovative research projects, led by early-to-mid-career health and medical researchers from Eligible Administering Institutions in Western Australia.
The focus areas, objectives, and priorities of the program include addressing high burden areas of disease that are amenable to precision health approaches, advancing precision health approaches for treatments and interventions in leading disease areas, supporting early to mid-career researchers to gain experience as project leaders, and identifying early-stage research innovations that have the potential for translation support.
The funding opportunity targets research projects in cancer, mental health conditions, musculoskeletal conditions (e.g., rheumatic or inflammatory), cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative conditions (including dementia), leveraging advances in ‘omics capabilities, digitally-enabled datasets, and analytical capabilities such as bioinformatics, statistical modelling, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The program will support innovative projects that apply precision medicine approaches to improve treatments or interventions in these disease areas.
Funding will be awarded in two tiers: Tier 1 provides up to $125,000 over two years for personnel and direct research costs, while Tier 2 offers seed funding of $25,000 for highly ranked “near miss” applications to further develop their concept over 12 months. It is anticipated that four Tier 1 awards and ten Tier 2 awards will be granted, though the total distribution may vary depending on assessment outcomes. All funding must be spent in Western Australia where possible and cannot be used for organisational overheads, indirect research costs, or HDR student stipends.
Eligibility requires the Chief Investigator A (CIA) to hold a PhD, Masters by Research, or equivalent research experience, have no more than 15 full-time equivalent years of post-HDR research, reside in Western Australia for at least 80% of the grant period, and meet all relevant employment and compliance criteria. Collaborating personnel and organisations, including industry and cross-disciplinary teams, are encouraged, provided they do not contribute to poor community health.
The THRF Group Precision Medicine Program follows a structured three-stage assessment process designed to evaluate applications based on scientific merit, feasibility, and potential impact. The assessment is conducted by a Grant Selection Advisory Committee (the Committee), which includes experienced health and medical research experts and consumer representatives. All Committee members must declare any Conflict of Interest (COI), which will be managed according to THRF Group’s conflict of interest framework.
Applicants must nominate at least two impartial, non-conflicted external reviewers, although THRF Group cannot guarantee their participation. Only information requested in the Full Application will be considered. The Committee, with input from specialist reviewers, assesses Full Applications against the Program’s assessment criteria. In cases where no Full Applications are competitive, THRF Group may close the program or return to the EOI pool for further invitations.
Applications must not focus solely or predominantly on biomarker discovery, disease aetiology, diagnosis, or monitoring, and must not overlap with existing projects. Selected EOIs will be invited to submit a Full Application, followed by possible further information requests or interviews. Successful projects must comply with research ethics and governance requirements, report progress and financial statements every six months, and acknowledge the funding partners in all communications. Applicants must submit their Expression of Interest via SmartyGrants by 4:00pm (AWST) Wednesday, 29 October 2025.
For more information, visit THRF.
