Fifth Round of Implementation Science Pilot Grants Announced

Sydney Health Partners, with support from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre (CPC), has awarded $220,000 in funding to 11 implementation science research projects.

The 2025 Implementation Science Pilot Grants aim to build capacity and expertise across SHP member organisations and enable health professionals, clinicians and researchers to translate evidence into real-world healthcare solutions.

Implementation Science Academy Co-lead, Associate Professor Heather Shepherd, says the fifth annual round of pilot grants was highly contested, and the successful applications span a wide range of conditions and patient groups.

“It’s been great to see the variety of conditions and patient and community populations as the focus of the implementation research projects, reflected in new teams, initiatives and settings from our health service partners being successful in this 2025 grant round,” she said.

One example is the pilot grant co-led by Professor Hasantha Gunasekera from the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and University of Sydney Clinical Psychology Lecturer Dr Trinh Ha. They will conduct an evaluation of a new model of psychology care for refugee families embedded into outpatient services, which aims to help children with mental health needs.

Dr Ha says these families have been impacted by displacement and conflict and as a result may be experiencing mental health difficulties including anxiety or post-traumatic stress.

“Recently arrived refugees parents may struggle to navigate the health system, and the children can fall through the gaps in our health service landscape.”

The project incorporates a model of care in which University of Sydney clinical psychology students are supported to deliver care to this priority population.

“It is the first project of its kind, where students get really hands on experience around providing this sort of service to this population,” said Dr Ha.

A key feature of the Implementation Science Pilot Grants program in recent years has been the requirement for two principal investigators – one from a health service and the other from an academic background. This had led to the formation of new research collaborations, including Dr Jacqueline Wesson from the School of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney and Frank Gomes, Senior Emergency Department Occupational Therapist at Western Sydney Local Health District.

The pilot grant will allow them to test the implementation of a new way of screening the functional cognition of older adults who present to emergency departments.

“Every day I need to make a decision about an ED patient and whether they can go home safely or not,” said Mr Gomes.

“But managing in the home environment is very different to the emergency department, so we need validated ways to assess a patient’s physical and cognitive performance, which are also practical, and can be successfully used by clinicians in a busy ED.”

For the first time, two of the pilot grants have been co-funded by the Implementation Hub of the Charles Perkins Centre.

One of these has been awarded to Dr Derek Tran, who is a Heart Foundation Fellow at the University of Sydney, and co-lead investigator, consulting cardiologist Associate Professor Belinda Gray, who is the Director of Sports Cardiology and Genetic Heart Disease at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Their pilot grant will offer free heart screening, including an exercise stress test, to student athletes at the University of Sydney, to identify those at risk of sudden cardiac death.

Dr Tran says the project will address a critical gap, given the limited data available on stress testing as a screening tool.

“Although rare, sudden cardiac death in athletes does occur, and this is particularly a concern for university athletes who aren’t routinely offered cardiac stress testing.”

Solutions Domain Lead at the CPC, Professor Tim Shaw, welcomed the awarding of the grants.

“These grants support the aspiration of the CPC implementation hub to increase partnerships with industry, services and government,” he said.

The 11 new implementation science pilot grants will commence in January 2026 and be completed within two years.