The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) Beyond Science¹  initiative hosted a roundtable with healthcare professionals, clinicians, academics, industry and government to discuss challenges facing translational clinical research and health technology innovators in Australia.

Australia is a globally recognised hub for early stage research but few of our key scientific discoveries are translated to the bedside. Those that make it to market often move overseas to survive as a business taking the economic benefits away from the Australian ecosystem that has funded the research. Overseas based med tech companies come to Australia as a mecca for early phase clinical trials. However, substantial delays and cost is a barrier due to duplicated governance at each site. Importantly, patients have very little visibility of these trials. Delay to access innovative trials due to poor transparency and complicated governance frameworks is a disservice to the Australian population and meaningless to those such as cancer patients for whom time to access is critical.

Participants identified the following challenges for translation:
1.    Short term project funding affects workforce retention over the typical 20 year project runway to get to market.
2.    Inconsistent research support across institutions disadvantages rural, remote and early career researchers the most.
3.    Insufficient critical mass of clinicians engaged in research to drive better health outcomes.

Consensus on call to action by stakeholders organisations:
• Academic network development: to better connect clinicians and researchers and simplifying navigation of the complex innovation ecosystem.
• Capacity providers:
    --improve agreements, Intellectual Property (IP) templates between universities, health precincts and hospitals to foster smoother path to market
    --universities to consider junior conjoint appointments to allow infrastructure support for Early Career Researchers (ECR)
    --reduce duplication and improve transparency to increase access to support. 
• Funders to consider flexible funding models to support clinician researcher and support different stages of academic career development.
• RACS:
    --RACS accreditation of training positions could be reviewed and revised to drive more consistent quality of support and recognition of research 
    --better support for PreSET Trainees who undertake research and promote career development pipeline in SET training to maintain academic skills
    --advocate for flexible models of supporting academic activity for all stages. 
• Government: partner with academics to better align national and state based initiatives aimed at macro level planning for implementation at a meso and micro level. 

RACS has a long-term commitment to bringing stakeholders together to further surgical and patient outcomes. The round table identified clear ways forward, and commitment from the attendees to address the obstacles that impact on these best outcomes.

Impact on ECR workforce

As early-career researcher Dr Wendy Cun highlighted, “One of the most important things is to understand early on what problem you’re trying to solve and what the actual clinical need is. Building collaborations with people from different areas is also very helpful, as it brings together different ideas and helps everyone work toward the same goal.”
Early career researcher Dr Ying Zhou noted, “I’m a materials researcher, so I’m really looking forward to collaborating with clinical specialists to co-develop clinically relevant products,” underscoring the need for cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Early career researcher, Zachary Och reflected on the importance of institutional support: “The greatest support has been the facilities and the people we have access to. They’ve been helping connect engineering students like me with clinicians and relevant research projects—small but important things really help enable me to develop my ideas and grow as a researcher.”

¹Beyond Science program is a capability and connectivity building initiative for Early Career Researchers (ECR ) undertaking medical device research offering project support, facilitating training and providing advocacy. It is supported by Pass-Williams foundation and Sydney Local Health district.