Australia's health and medical research workforce

Australia’s health and medical research workforce: expert people providing exceptional returns is a report for the Australian Society of Medical Research (ASMR), prepared by Deloitte Access Economics. The ASMR had noted that this particular workforce had been eroding over the past few years, principally due to static funding at the NHMRC. 

This report's findings included the calculation that each $1 invested into the NHMRC-funded health and medical research workforce for the last 15 years returned $3.20 - a net benefit of $23.4 billion. Some health conditions demonstrated very high returns, such as cardiovascular disease, which returned $9.80 per dollar invested.

The report authors concluded that their data provided "evidence of the exceptional health and economic returns of investing in Australia’s productive and highly talented research workforce. ... Australia still has capacity to provide greater output and benefits as a result of investing further in the NHMRC and the workforce it supports."