Sydney Health Partners (SHP) will receive $6.1 million over three years from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to continue its Rapid Applied Research Translation Program.

Federal Minister for Health, The Hon Greg Hunt MP, announced the investment in the work of SHP - along with similar funding for fellow Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre SPHERE Maridulu Budyari Gumal - at a function in Sydney on July 3.

Executive Director, Professor Garry Jennings, said SHP will use the money to speed the translation of research findings into hospital wards and health clinics.

“This funding will assist Sydney Health Partners to remove or reduce the barriers to the efficient and effective translation of medical research into clinical practice, said Professor Jennings.

“Today's announcement allows us to build on work we’ve commenced and create additional scale in the rapid translation of research into better health outcomes. By doing so we aim to deliver the benefits of health research and innovation to our patients and communities faster and more consistently.”

Sydney Health Partners is one of four inaugural AHRTCs accredited by the National Health and Medical Research Council in 2015 and collectively through its members serves 2.7 million people, or more than 10 per cent of the Australian population.

The new funding follows an initial $2.25 million from the MRFF received by SHP in 2017 and which was used to support 14 research projects across the Partnership as well as national AHRTC alliance projects.

“The projects we have funded to date were chosen because they showed strong prospects of improving clinical outcomes and could be readily translated into clinical practice,” said Professor Jennings.

In addition to funding research, SHP has commenced several capacity-building projects to enhance research translation across the partnership: