Education

Video transcript

David Cash  
Intellectual property in the newly formed Business Development team in the Office of Research and Innovation.

David Cash  
My boss, the director of the team, Tim Evans, has asked me to introduce our speaker today and as I said, we've got a lot to cover, we don't want to waste too much time, so we'll dive right into that.
Today, our speaker is Dr Veronica McCabe. She is the principal and founder of the Research Collective.
They help organisations to optimise funding opportunities through strategic involvement.
They also provide high level project management and support and it's our privilege to have Veronica with us today.
She's got over 20 years experience in the health and medical research sector and has held senior executive management positions both in the government and the not-for-profit sector.
So she's really got the inside on this whole business of grant writing and putting your best foot forward in a very competitive market, as we all know.

Today, she's going to be talking using both NHMRC and MRFF grants as exemplars to help people think about the best way to prepare a compelling application.
Some dos and don'ts, some Intel on experience and things like that.
So without further ado, I'll I will turn it over to Veronica.

Veronica McCabe  
OK.
Thanks, Dave and yeah, well, welcome everybody.
We've got a lot of people online and people keep joining, so that's great.
And just because of the numbers, the way we'll structure it is obviously I will talk and give you you know my insights and some tips and some ideas about how you prepare your application and I've worked on both sides as a funder, and I was a researcher myself, but I've also worked as a research funder for large funding organisations.
And now in my work with Research Collective, and providing report support for for researchers, so through providing strategic grant reviews and helping with Grant writing.
So I'll put all that together and all that experience and hopefully you'll have some takeaways at the end of it.
So, I'm just going to put the presentation.
So Technical Support here.

David Cash  
And if I can just chime in really quick, we've agreed right to hold all questions until the end.
So we'll be collecting those and then you'll address them at the end.

David Cash  
Is that right?

Veronica McCabe  
And so yeah, if you put some questions into the chat, somebody monitoring the chat here and we'll group them and hopefully we'll have time to go through, go through those and if not, well, we don't get through everything we'll actually create like an FAQ afterwards.
So there will be sort of a resource posted.
So thanks Dave for that.
OK, the slides.
Sorry, just getting slides ready.
OK.
Apologies, we’re just getting the slides ready.
Bit of technical difficulties.
OK, great. So.
Just to.
A bit forward… so, this is just the slide I found or a little cartoon which I guess for some of you who've been through the experience may sort of recognise some of this and some of you that haven't, it probably looks a bit like this, that there's all of this complexity around putting a grant together and that's both the writing, navigating through the processes and you know, putting, getting all the information together.
So it can feel a bit like this, and probably sometimes it, you know it's, it looks and and it feels very daunting.
And so, if we just take a step back and what I've done here, it’s just really stripped down. Now, what's in the proposal?
And I've reviewed grant proposals for a number of schemes NHMRC, MRFF and some local schemes so state-based government schemes and so Department of Defense grants and really, if you take out all the elements, there's actually you know these five components and there's introduction background where you'll talk about your big question.
So you also talk about what you already know. You know, some of that context, some of the, you know what the literature is telling us? and then what are the gaps and how this is sort of alluded to this question that you want to to ask and importantly why we need to know this.
So that will sort of sit somewhere in, in a proposal, it would be in there, the research plan or whatever it might be somewhere you'll talk about that, right, that information.
And then there'll be outcomes and benefits.
It could be called outcomes and impacts and outcomes are you know the what happens with the outputs of your research.
So the outputs of your product.
So that could be publications, but outcomes of what happens with them, what the next thing that is and who benefits.
So who you doing this for?
And and what will they get from it?
And then methods.
So the approach you're gonna take, how you've decided on that approach and you know it's a clinical trial, how have you picked the study design you know have you write it, your sample size, those sort of things would be what in your methods and then the team, who you've got working with you, you know, have you got the right skills, you know how you gonna get them involved and just making sure all of that sort of knits together as a sort of a cohesive narrative?
And then finally, the costs, now often you'll have a research office or somebody who will help you prepare costs and within a grant, they're often quite fixed.
You know you have a fixed salary or a fixed component for salaries and consumables, but we often have to provide a justification.
So that's really if we just take it down to its sort of simplest form.
Then, in terms of what you need to do or one is plan your research and pay your research proposal and the other is building and your track record and presenting your track skills, your experience, your expertise, and we'll just talk through a bit of you know those two sort of aspects.
So what makes a good proposal?
And well, it's easy to read.
It has a clear hypothesis and research questions and good justification.
There's a compelling idea, and the benefits are clearly articulated, and that all sounds pretty obvious when you, you know, put it down like that.
It's, you know, the the stock standard of what you'd expect, but sometimes as people are writing as your writing, you can get caught up in some of the detail and some of that can get lost.
And just to sort of illustrate that a little bit and if we've got here, this is just a paragraph I've created and it's sort of, you know language I've seen before and there's nothing wrong with it, but if you read it, you know it's got words in there that you know are hiding if you like the compelling idea, cause really the compelling point is that, it's the lack of a stage diagnosis treatments and the anticipated impact that that will have and you know whatever disease talking about and the high number of cases and you could add in.
Obviously, the cost implications of that, and because the thing you also want to remember is you've actually got quite a tight number of either word count or pages.
So getting your sort of compelling ideas, clear, short statements and so you're getting to the the nuts of it really quickly.
And I said the the language on the the left hand side is actually OK.
But you know, you just can sometimes lose the the the concept or can get a bit bogged out.
So, in terms of common mistakes… not reading guidelines and selection criteria.
Again, it seems pretty obvious, but it's amazing how that can happen.
I mean, we’re all busy people, so you know somebody may highlight those ground round coming up and it's just riding your area and it's just perfect and it's a short timeline.
So you look at it quickly and go, oh, it's very like the last one I did.
And you can just quite easily start putting in the information as you've got it and it doesn't quite fit or it's not addressing the needs of that scheme or the focus of that scheme or suddenly you find you've got something that you need to do, like get a partner that, you know, an industry partner or whatever it might be.
What particular sign up?
So it's worth spending a bit of time just going through and making sure that you've actually understood what that one is about because it may not be the right grant opportunity for you, even if it looks like that on the surface for you know reasons that you don't have everything you need together and using jargon and acronyms now it's avoid what we can't not use jargon and acronyms, it's actually using them and not explaining.
And I've reviewed grants where I've actually Googled what an acronym is, because to try and understand the relevance of what that means in the context of what I'm reading, and reviewers won't do that and they won't have time.
You know, they'll be looking at, you know, 30 applications.
So things like that, where it starts becoming a really hard to read and a hard to understand project are, what will sort of trip up. And so, when using acronyms just explain them and, you know, make sure you've got them referenced properly and a good way to check that is get some chance to read it as well.
That's always a good sort of rule of thumb anyway.
It's actually get somebody else to read your application.
Somebody who's a bit removed from what you're doing but can actually give you some, you know, constructive input.
I'm hard to follow again, that feeds off the jargon and acronyms, but you know you can sometimes get text which has been, you know, people have moved text around.
Sometimes that happens where you lose a little bit of the, you know the continuity of the story, and similarly alongside that multiple aims and questions.
So I've often seen, you know, aims 1 and 2 and 3 are described and clearly set out is what they are and then somewhere further on aims 1 and 2 and 3 have not changed completely, but the wordings change and the emphasis has changed.
And that then just find yourself going backward and forward trying to understand, you know what?
You know what actually is the aim.
So, you know, making name.
Keep it consistent and just keep that continuity and that consistency through it just makes it, you know, you're giving yourself a much better chance and again, just to sort of give a little bit of an illustration about that.
This is again just something I've created here, but you know I've seen things like this before where you know a project is described in three different ways within an application.
So here it's like, you know, on page, whatever one, it's described as this innovative translational project, this hybrid effectiveness implementation design and then further on it's innovation, primary care service and then further on, it's a bit of both, it's the primary care service using hybrid effectiveness implementation sign, now, it's not there's a right or a wrong there, it's just again just pick one and just keep that as a consistent messaging throughout and it just again keeps the the narrative clear and the concepts will stay consistent throughout.
So, who are you writing for?
I mean, we already alluded to this.
Uh, you know, primarily you're writing for a reviewer and it will be, and somebody who will, maybe an expert and and review processes, can vary so some organisations will have an expert reviews, they'll actually send a proposal out to an expert who will be somebody in your field will understand, you know your particular area, and so they could obviously give you will critique in a different way to somebody who's maybe not as close to your subject.
And so, some organisations will have a review, an expert review, and maybe your review committee.
Some might just have a review committee made up of a collection of people who've got expertise in research areas, but again may not be close to your field.
So you've got to think about, you know, that's the audience.
So you wanna make sure you're writing it in a way that's cases for that broader audience, which is actually quite a hard thing to do?
I mean a bit of a takeover is don't dump it down to make it accessible, and that sounds like again, you know, a bit of a the nice statement to say, but it's actually very hard thing to do and it's something where, you know over time it's something obviously you get more experienced at, but this is where getting somebody else to read it can make such a valuable difference and give you, you know the best sort of opportunity, because if when you're close to something what you think you're saying is clear is clear because you understand it, and you're intimately linked to it, but somebody stepping outside of that and can just say: I don't really get what you're saying here or is this what you're saying?
So you know, it's definitely cool on those favours and those friends that can do that for you.
So, that's about, you know, the if you like the way to approach an application and when you're writing your research component or the if you like the project plan and that's, in my experience I've always found is always tends to be really well written aside from you know, some of maybe just the flow.
But generally, it's the part that people you know are obviously most close to and can really articulate people what they want to do and why.
And you know, sometimes it's a need to move things around a bit, but generally it can it.
It's the probably always, when I've done strategic reviews, it's the parts and where aside from if if the the you know the flow is not there the the actual content is always pretty good.
But the other part of of which needs an equal amount of time and attention is your track record and building your track record is really about two things, it's about you and your career, so the opportunity you've had and you know in a term that's used, you may have heard as well.
Is this relative to opportunity?
And that's really, you know, what has happened to you or helped you to move into your career and move you along your career related to the opportunities that…
And then, the other party is about performance and that's about what you've done and what you're outputs and impacts are.
And so that's really the two components now.
One thing that you might wanna start doing, particularly if you're, you know, just starting out looking at, you know, applying for funding.
And as you're starting that sort of research career or research trajectory is you may start want to think about building a track record statements that you can call on and use that's like a resource you can use and what you’re including that so you know things around you know your opportunity, it's how you got where you are.
So summary of what you've done and you know the appointments you had and the contributions you made to your field research, related activity, so you worked in industry and the other skills you've gained.
And then, the other thing that will build into your opportunity is this career and any career disruptions you've had now funded will often have a set, NHMRC have a set type of, you know, career disruptions and it actually, you know, has in their system you will put in dates and actually auto calculates those for you and but writing a narrative around that as well about your career context of where you've started from what opportunities are coming away, you know time in industry, whatever that is, different experiences and having a short statement you can use and repurpose and obviously build on over time. Performance says about your achievements, so that's things like publications and book chapters, but other things as well.
This significant contribution generally prizes, awards, patents, anything that's you know, you can demonstrate, you know where you've been, you know, moving through in your field.
So, the one thing is well that you want to be capturing as part of, is this impact, now next month, there's actually gonna be another workshop about research impact, but I just wanted to touch on that a little bit more because research impact is something that's now, you know quite a big focus for funders.
And actually, I'll say that from funders across many different organisations I've worked in, impact has been and you know, an area that has, you know, comes up again and again.
So be that in government, I've worked in governments and I've worked in non-for-profits. So, donors want it, you know, chief executives want it, and governments and any other funders as well in that mix.
So it's such an integral part of now of this of the research landscape, so, just to sort of think about impact, and now this is a definition here, it's this is the NHMRC and it's one that's you know other definitions sit out there but very, very similar.
So the effect of research after it's been adopted, adapted for use or used to inform further research.
So it's really when the research you've done has then led to something else and has sort of taken a different you know, has moved from you like from the academic setting into another area, and it has actually being adopted and adapted, and impact can take a long time and I think we all understand that and, in terms of NHMRC, I'll just talk about them because that's maybe you know, a place, a big role in research funding in in Australia, the way the NHMRC asked you to talk about research impact is about in three ways it's about significance and reach, it's about how a research, your research programs contributes to impact, and a research program is like a cohesive body of research, and then how you have contributed to that research program, and that could be different ways, could be intellectual, it could be technical and this is all relative to opportunity and that's again just an important point to reemphasise that both when we're talking about your track record, it's all about relative to opportunity.
So, the expectations of what you would be presenting at three years post PhD as to post 15 years PhD is quite different, and you know that's what your assessors will acknowledge that as well, and in terms of, with the NHMRC impact, the way they talk about or think about it is in these four particular domains, if you like, and they have economic knowledge, health and social, and what you need to do is you need to select one or more of these and talk about an impact that's happened.
So, that can be a recent impact and then you talk about your research program that help contribute to that impact, and then you talk about what you you did.
So it's those 3 aspects and you don't have to pick all four of them.
And and in fact you don't get sort of more benefit for talking about impacts possible for, it's actually better to be selective and pick one that's really clear one that you know it's got a clear line of sight.
And so I just thought as an example or a way to illustrate that and I picked it, picked it a very recent impact, and that's the development of COVID 19 vaccine and this is the AstraZeneca, so Oxford University sort of research study that was done in the lead to AstraZeneca.
And I mean, I’ll just pick this one, it is actually a case study that the Oxford University did put into the… so the UK has organisations…to present pace studies.
This is what they did include and in the most responses in 2021 and then COVID-19 vaccine.
I don't think we have to explain what the impact has been, it probably covers multiple domains, but if we go back and I think this just illustrates really nicely and that you know this was a very the latter impact that we're aware of happened in you know 2021 just when we had the 2020-2021, when there was the, you know, the development of vaccine and the clinical trials and then you know, follow on from that, we're going right back actually goes back to 2012 when there was these different stages that were that led to that.
So you know 2012, so in construction of the platform and then back the MERS and then you know 2020 the platform for SARS, Co V2 and there's obviously other work that happened in between all that.
But as a if you were, you know, working or talking about your role in some of this, it may be that that you were involved in the work in 2017, which had an impact, which is led, you know it's has fed through to this final impact.
So you may talk about the program of work that you did in developing the vaccine for MERS and how you know, that led to a health impact there.
So it's you can look way back and particularly the NHMRC, don't put a timeline on how you know far back the underlying and underpinning research is, but it's then obviously linking it to that more recent impact.
So, and I just wanted to sort of just take a bit of time to talk about research impact just in this in this context because it will be in proposals and you may be asked about perspective impact of what you have, what your, what your project or your research will actually lead to.
But equally, you may have to present a sort of a narrative about research you've done has had an impact or has helped to lead to that impact, because it's never just one thing that results in impact as illustrated here.
So, other things that will be in an application is a somewhere, a plain English summary and and that's a, you know, just summarised it there.
It's really a short, usually 100 words and statements about what your project will do and what it's going to, you know, achieve, what the significance is.
And it's written in a way that's easily understood and their purpose of this is often for for a media statements and put on websites.
So you know ARC and NHMRC, I think use them to to actually put on their website when they, you know list work research they funded.
So it's that general audience this is targeted at, so it's not the reviewer and you know it's not the expert is actually the more general audience, and when I'm doing workshops, if I'm, you know, doing them face to face, I often get people to do have a go at writing the plain English summary and yeah, surprisingly hard and maybe harder when you're giving her 15 minutes and time limit.
But it's one of these ones again, get somebody else to read it. Make sure it's you know what you may think is language is is, you know, clearly understood is just, you know who's worth getting second check and again just I just created this.
This is just a a summary of advanced and cardiology that talking about any particular research and it just to show you know, sort of words in that you maybe have for a more expert audience, you know would be include words like my cardio restoration and regenerative therapies and cardiovascular pathophysiology.
You know, that's all perfectly, you know, standard language that you'd expect to see in a grant application.
You know, be, you know, very comfortable with, you know that I review a irrespective whether in your close you'll feel right.
So do you feel that the language they would be, you know, pretty happy to see and would phase them, but not for a general audience.
So, taking it then to the the more general audience, we talked about exciting new progress in heart research and how you know we'll get improvements and less invasive heart surgery, better personalised heart medicines and understanding how you know living longer, healthier lives.
So, you know, that's just to show you how you get from, you know what you've been writing some more and common terminology that you'd use in in your sort of day-to-day and and sort of writing in a grant application you presenting this sort of scientific work and then how you break it down then for the the more general audience.
And this is just a framework.
This is actually taken from the ARC, the Australian Research Council and they give this as a bit of a guide of and I think it's quite a nice one.
And and when I do workshops, I actually use this as a as a way to help people to try and construct their plain English summary.
And it just gives you these statements that help you, you know, just to think about and guide you a little bit on you know what what these four things are, the aims, significant outcomes and benefits and you know just as a something you might like to try and new or might want to refer to of how to you know sort of take that and just build and then obviously we craft it into something that flows into a nice sort of succinct word summary.
OK, so that was really covering, you know what's in a Grant? What's the processes?
Sorry, what's you know, the structure? What the things you need to be including and thinking about?
And so now I was just gonna move on and talk a little bit about some actual and early mid career opportunities and just focusing on 2 schemes, the NHMRC Investigator Awards and then the MRFF early to mid-career researchers initiative.

And just to start off by saying earlier, mid-career is it's typically defined as early is up to five years post PhD, and then mid-career is typically 5 to 10 years, posed to PhD.
That's yeah, 5 to10 years post PhD and there may be some variations to that and Queensland Health you might had experience of applying for Queensland Health clinical Research fellows, fellowships and they have 4 categories of novice, early, emerging and mid.
And also I can't remember the top of my head what the breakdown of time for that is.
And so, this is why it's always worth checking the guidelines, because things like that can vary slightly, but they, you know, are quite often they'll be that up to five and five to 10.
That's starting with the NHMRC Investigator award.
So who are these for?
And they're for researchers across all career stages, and the investigator awards are effectively equivalent to the person ward, and it's about…
Yes, uh, it has two, it has the emerging leader is, if you like, the entry level and that has up to 10 years post PhD.
And so that's where NHMRC investigator was a bit different because they don't have this early-mid, they just have this and category of emerging leader which is up to 10 and then it within that it has two levels, EL 1 and 2, and then there is once you're on 10 years, there's also an opportunity to apply for a leadership more than three levels within that.
So it's career spanning these words are and NHMRC awards are for all health and medical all areas of health and medical research.
And you know, clinical, basic, public health, and everything.
So it doesn't define, you know, by a particular disease type.
I mean, there are obviously some NHMRC schemes that have a more targeted pool, but that's obviously periodically they will do that.
But are there other Grant investigator awards?
You know, ideas, grants, synergy grants, they're all have, you know, across the board and in terms of considerations, probably the only thing really to flag is there is a limitation on how many NHMRC grants you can hold as a chief investigator, so that's just being mindful of that.
As you know, your progressing mate just need to double check, you know, if you're eligible just because they they do have that limitation. The investigator awards are in terms of funding, you applied for your salary and then you apply for a sort of a research support package as well.
So it's a, you know, a package to and therefore five years to outsource whatsoever 5 years, and in terms of ho, the other thing you need to look at as well is the assessment criteria.
So it's always worth looking at, you know how they're assessed and what are the things that they focus on the assessment and how is that weighted.
And so investigator awards, two things: track record and knowledge gain.
So track record, record spoken about that.
So this is where it's about you, it's about your, you know, where you've been in, how you've got to where you are in your career, where you are in your career relative to opportunity and it will bring in those things like your have you know where you’ve had career disruptions and those sort of factors, so that will be built into the application process and in terms of all the things that sit in there, the track record also looks your publications and you have to provide 10 of the best.
So again, that's something that's quite common and in research for research funders, they may ask you to talk about, you know, what are your 10 best publications and then and why.
So you will talk about it, you know, the ones that have been most, either formed you or had a big impact in your field, contribution to your field research or in your particular discipline and you know where you've led the study you know so things where you've actually been it showcases how you've been.
Yeah, the lead author and how you were voted the, you know Development, implementation, execution or whatever it is and and how it sort of you know bins of impactful in your field and you'll also talk about in this track record your research impact.
So as I mentioned earlier, that's that where what was the impact, the recent impact, what's the significance in reach of that?
What's the program of research that you did? and then how you fitted into that and and with that, you have to evidence that so you need to be collecting and information about, you know, sort of corroborating evidence for that.
And then the other part of track record in terms of the assessment criteria is about leadership and it's really about where you've been growing in book career in areas of research, mentoring and so professional leadership.
So so for mentoring that could be fostering collaborations with junior researchers, you know, and creating sort of teams, professional leadership and that will be, you know, could be how you've been driving innovation.
And so institutionally leadership, that would be teaching or you know again how you've been sort of contributing to developing people.
And then really about how you've been directing your research programs, building collaborations.
So that's the sort of the other part of it and knowledge gain that's about your research plan and how you'll be described what your research vision is.
You know what the significance of what you're doing?
The you know the big question, what's the, you know what we know already?
What are the gaps and why we want to do that?
But also the research design, you know what hypothesis is? What is your plan to do that and how it's going to contribute to your field and and lead to those health outcomes?
So the other scheme I was going to speak about, was the MRFF early to mid career researchers initiative, so these are targeted at obviously early mid-career researchers with that, as I mentioned earlier that the same that timeline early is 5 years post PhD mid-career is 5 to 10 and what this is different about these is that they are actually supporting teams of researchers.
So this is, you know, the purpose of these is to, you know, to build capacity and capability across early mid-career researchers so they can, you know, obviously advance their research.
They also can develop skills and also advance their careers.
And then, you know, with a a purpose of of retaining that skill and knowledge and expertise in Australia and they break them down into 3 grand types, they call incubator accelerator and targeted calls.
And these are terms that they actually use across other MRF schemes, so they just keep them, you know, consistent in their initiatives, but for the purposes of of this early, mid career researchers scheme, the incubator grants are early stage, small scale research and the team is exclusively early career researchers.
But not exclusively, sorry, it's majority of early career researchers, so the lead investigator, CIA is an early career researcher, and 80% of the team are also early career researchers and has to include more senior researchers, provides up mentorship and obviously support.
And there for two years, the second one, the accelerator in this purpose of this scheme, they are for mid-career, so with the predominantly mid-career research team again led by mid-career researchers and 80% of the team are mid-career with that supported mentoring from senior researchers and therefore five years.
So those are looking at and you know a more sort of scaling up I guess of research and recognising the stage of career and those five years.
And then the final one, which is called targeted course, it's a little bit, you know it can be throw you a bit because it's not necessarily a targeted core per se and it's actually a co-funding arrangement.
So this one you have to have Co-funding by your Academic organisation.
You're, you know your sponsoring organisation and a partner organisation.
So partnerships are really sort of, you know, built in part of this, this particular initiative and for the MRFF more general. In that case, it's a mixed team of early and mid career has 50% of early and mid career.
So you know there, there's the style of these and I'm actually referring one of reference now is actually the 2023 scheme, it actually had a focus on priority populations and that was described in a very broad way.
So it included, you know, whole range Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, older people, people aware of untreatable diseases, people from remote and rural communities and others as well, and that was just last year, so it doesn't mean that's always gonna be the case, but it may have a particular focus.
Again, this is where the reading the guidelines you need to know if there is a particular focus and do a need to get co-funding.
So this this sort of scheme is 1 is good example of 1 where you know you do need to be clear and and have a good read through because there's aspects in it that you just need to make sure that you do align with that your project aligned with that and you're addressing that as well.
And in terms of considerations, I've just flagged 3 there, you know the confronting of already mentioned partnerships, it's just they, you know emphasize that quite a lot and they give you lists of types of organizations or groups to partner with.
And then that composition of the team just remembering, you know, it has to be this mix of 80% or 50% depending on which one it is of the early in mid career researchers.
Now, just thinking about the assessment criteria, so, MRFF has these four areas and you know it part of pretty much in every one I've seen so far.
This is the same structure and so it talks about and the weightings are there and you can see one is not weighted, which I'll talk about as well.
Why?
It's not nothing why it's not weighted, but it's still important.
So project impact, that's really looking at the extent to what the outputs will drive those or contribute to meaningful advances and also how it's gonna contribute to the objectives of whatever the initiative is.
And so this case is obviously mid query searches in building capacity, so you have to address that also may ask to talk about.
There’s a focus on priority populations, how your research is going to deliver that and also how and the partners are going to be involved, so partnership brings in a whole package of things like that.

Methodology, that's your project plan. The conduct of the research, you know, the that it'll look at whether it's feasible, you know how we assess how feasible.
However, delivering on intended consequences.
So you just have to be able to demonstrate that.
And again, you know why you selected the methods you have, the capacity, capability and resources.
That's the skills, experience, diversity of the team, the capability within that and including they also make a very specific point about including how consumers can be supported, so consumer involvement is and it's not exclusive to the MRFF.
It's actually again a very important consideration for a lot of funding, a lot of funders and building that in, is often now a requirement as well.
And then, the value and risk as you can see it's not weighted, but that doesn't mean it's not important and value and risk is really about how the the projects will contribute to MRFF.
So the MRFF as you know, the whole MRFF objectives now but so and that's one component but also the budget justification which is the value and a risk management plan.
Now the risk management plan is MRFF have a sort of a little template, you can use it, they described in the guidelines where they describe risk themes and give you suggestions of what they might be, and you need to put the mitigation.
So I would say just follow that.
It's actually quite a useful framework to use, you know, you don't have to go and create anything else, so again, lean into the guidelines, see what's there, use what they tell you to use.
And I have, you know, it just means it makes things a lot easier for you, particularly when it's not, you know, it's not within a system, so within the NHMRC, you know, you'd apply through a system and it will guide you through the way you gotta write, you know, sort of a text if there's some way that give you guidance to use that.
So I just want to go back to that value and risk and I mentioned it has to, you know, part of what that does is looks so contributed to MRFF objectives and outcomes and well will be part of assessing that is this measures of success statement.
So this was introduced a couple of years ago and what it is, is a description of how your research contributes to the MRFF success measures.
Now the MRFF success measures are found in this monitoring, learning and evaluation strategy that the MRFF and I published a couple of years ago and it's really a way of what they were doing was stepping out and saying ok, so what are the things that we're gonna see that will tell us that the MRFF has been successful and there's 9 success measures and like one of the top of my head is increasing clinical trials in Australia.
That's one of them.
So you may select that one, and then you gotta talk about how your project contributes to that success measure.
So it was increased clinical trials, but Clinical Trials gonna be doing, but also how you gonna evaluate that and so that part the how you will evaluate it, will actually then become part of the report you need to do.
So if you're successful, so you just present this in a tabulated form.
Now, I said there's nine measures of success.
You don't have to select all nine, just select the ones that are most relevant to your research.
So think about it.
Think is this the one that's actually I can show how my project will contribute to that and how I will measure that or evaluate that because you will actually then you know you successful they will sit within the your reporting your contracts and then the reporting format well, you know be part of that.
So it's just where, you know, just bearing that in mind and those again measures of success statement, it is across all MRFF because you may approach MRFF either through initiative I've just described that mid career researchers initiative or it may be that there's a particular disease specific call and you come in through that way.
There's different ways you may enter or may have come into the MRFF so, but just no.
See, this is something that will sit there.
And I've already mentioned involving consumers and how you know in the MRFF, NHMRC obviously also have a very big focus on how consumers are involved, they've got a statement on consumer community involvement and they have a toolkit on their website. I mean the reasons, obviously you don’t probably need to state, there is compelling evidence that's involving consumers and health research is mainly benefits, not just a few there, you know they helped share the research question, make a relevant research question or make your research relevant and, so your approaching and addressing it in the right way to do the right thing that's needed and it can help us strengthen translation, build confidence and an increase in funding opportunities.
I think the increase in funding opportunities it really comes back to having it informed by people who lived experience. So, funder will then have and at you know, note that that's actually been such an integral part of what you're doing.

And that then leads to obviously that increased funding, and there is a huge amount of resources out there about how to involve consumers and research.
And I think is well recognised, obviously that there's a learning for people who want to be able, so consumers who may want to take part and what they need in terms of skills development, but also for researchers, how they may need to approach this and a really practical guide, just I've not used it, but I've just in my looking at different resources that are available out there is one that's been developed by the Western Australian Health and Translational Network, which is one of the NHMRC Advanced Translational centres and it's actually a handbook they've created with some checklists and tools and just to guide you through and actually works across for funders, for consumers, for researchers.
So it also within it references other tools to use, so there's just a masses of stuff out there, and so I'd obviously encourage you to take a look at those, you know when you're planning your research, if you want to think about how you bring consumers into that and how to, you know, support them.
And I mean, obviously you know a clinical area, many of you might be working with patients, so you obviously have some insights and and may really have obviously, uh, you know, good interactions and it would actually be very something very and you know easy or relatively easy for you to to build in but it may not be the case for everybody but it's just again just wanted to flag that it's such a you know an integral part of research and planning and developing your research proposals and projects.

Veronica McCabe  

I just want to add this one in as a last point and and it's more of a just as a I guess a bit of an FYI or a just for to to think about and obviously ChatGPT and many others generative IT AI are out there now as tools, but just and I actually took this is actually what's in the NHMRC guidelines and it's just a reference to say like please remember anything you do submit becomes part of public database and there's risks around that.

So you know this is, the obvious ones, the security, confidentiality, IP, you don't wanna be compromising your IP.
So if you're putting in your research plan to get it to, you know, sharpen it up a bit, or to make it read better, bearing in mind that once it's in there, it is, then part of a public database, and that could really compromise, also patient data.
Uh, I know Queensland health of produce similar sort of guidance as well on on how to use these tools.
So, just wanted to sort of add that in given you know it's it's, you know big part of our lives now and we'll be going forward.
So, that was everything I was gonna cover.
So we do have time for questions.
And so I'm just going to try and, if I stop sharing.

David Cash  
Can you see them in the chat tab, Veronica?

Veronica McCabe
Well, Amanda's been collating for, I'm just going to stop sharing and that should hopefully…

David Cash  
OK. Yep.

Veronica McCabe  
Uh, OK, we still haven't got on the screen.
Let me just try and get out of this here.
All about this.
So I've got a very slow laptop here.
David Cash  
If you get stuck, I can read them out.

Veronica McCabe  
So Amanda's written a few out for me. I'll see if I can.
So we've got one about advice for framing track record of an experienced clinicians, you're renting to research for the first time and strong chat with research topics, but without a research track record.
And yeah, look, I think this is again about this relative to opportunity.
So, I think probably what I would just suggest is is really start creating a track record statement.
So almost like forget about the scheme and just to start talking about you know where you started your research, we have all those factors that you are an experienced clinician, you know, should come into play and, that’s really where I’d start from, is just documenting, if you start building it out in that way and then hopefully you can, that will perform the narrative you need.
And so we've got another one: does the contribution impact need to be demonstrated by being sighted or can it be clinical practice or attending professional development? And so, for impact, for research impact, you do have to have you know sort of evidence to show that, so corroborating evidence.
So it can't be sort of anecdotal, clinical practice and look, it has to be something where you can show it's it's been, you know, so obviously if something's been published, not academically published or if there's been uh media release, things that are actually tangible that can really speak to the impact.
So in other words, what are the key things that early career research solutions starting research should do to progress, how do you build networks internally or without sort of academic institutions? Yeah, look, I think you just have to start slowly and start small and the other thing as well is applying for grants is don't apply for big grants if you're not ready for them, don't, go for the small pilot studies go for.
Opportunities where you can just do a small project and from that you'll start then seeing who else do I need to work with and then start building out your network in that way and you know, lean into the other thing is worth get a mentor as well, get a research mentor.
That's hugely valuable, and I've worked on a program around and some years ago it was focusing on people who had been out of research.
It was actually for women who've been out of research and wanted to get back in and to build their careers, and part of it was they had research mentors, and that was hugely, hugely valuable.
So finding a mentor I would say is actually one of the best things you can do as an early career researcher because it can help you navigate through some of the processes, but also help you to build out those networks as well.
In terms of another question or part of that, is there a whole of Queensland health strategy to actively support this, that system or team level?
And yeah, I apologise, I couldn't answer that because I'm I'm, you know, obviously don't work for Queensland health, but I can certainly find out and we can, you know, say we'll create an FAQ for for for this after this as well so that we can have a resource for everybody.
Umm, so MRFF.
So I'm just trying to read some writing here.
Ohh, what is the handbook?
So the handbook that's involved?
What I'll actually do is I'll make sure that that's then we'll send you the link to that handbook the WA Health Translational network research consumer handbook.
I'll get that link and I'll get that circulated, so that will be we can put that in as a sort of a post workshop information.
So those it was saying that the MRFF goes, it's important for Queensland health employees to know that, but they understand what it's for eligible organisations can only apply.
OK.
Yeah.
So I think it was more of a a comment about MRFF.
Yeah, there is.
There is eligibility of, so they they do list the types of organisations that that can apply to the MRFF.
So that's again an important point.
One more?
If I'm the project manager on a study, not an investigator, can I include that as a track record given I was involved in the output and impact?
Yes, I would say yes, if you've been involved in a research study and you know even not as an investigator.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's part of your track record.
OK.

David Cash  
Veronica, can I throw one thing out really quick?
Just as a follow up to your great suggestion to start small and build from there and I'm just looking specifically at the question that referenced the fact that apparently umm, what is it here, that clinicians are told that the traditional message research is something need to do on your own time?
That's, crushing for me to hear that.
But just so you know, we've got the clinical research fellowships at Queensland Health offers. I've recently had great interactions with youngish clinician who works out of the RBWH who’s been successful in getting one and he seems to be doing exactly that, starting small building from there.
So please reach out to us and think about applying for those, if you want something small to start with.

Veronica McCabe  
And I think that's good point actually, so thanks Dave.
So one thing I didn't specifically mention was about clinical research fellowship.
So there are schemes and that are, you know, dedicated for clinician researchers.
And as you've may probably be aware as well, there's actually quite a growing narrative around how to better support clinicians, you know, to be involved in research because it's, you know, trying to, you know, struggle that between your clinical practice and research and they do buy out time, a lot of those clinician researcher schemes will actually have time that you can buy out, and obviously, like Queensland ones are like that and Queensland Health ones and so doesn't take away from it being a challenge, I'm sure, still, even with that, but you know, I think certainly and and you know, knowing of those exists.
So I think that just sort of question popping up about the a link to their clinician researcher fellowship.
So I think we can provide some post-workshop information about that.

David Cash  
Yep, absolutely.
Thank you so much.
That's much appreciated and and thanks to Amanda for manning the desk in there and helping out if there's nothing else, we'll go ahead and call it a wrap.

Veronica McCabe  
OK.
Well, thank you everybody for your, you know, tending today and hopefully that was there was some takeaways for you.

David Cash  
Thank you.

Veronica McCabe
Thank you.

Video transcript

David Cash  

We are fortunate to once again have Veronica McCabe, the principal and founder of the Research Collective, presenting this grant writing workshop. Just a reminder that if you missed last month's presentation, it was recorded and can be viewed at your leisure.
A couple of housekeeping rules before I introduce Veronica. If you haven't done so, make sure you mute your mic to avoid background noise and if your screen is showing that Amanda's presenting, that's because Veronica is using Amanda's computer.
And if you'll submit any questions you have along the way as written questions and Amanda will collate those for discussion at the end.
As I mentioned, we're fortunate to have Veronica with us again. She provides expert guidance and advice support to researchers and research organisations to help them articulate and communicate the impact of their research in order to optimise funding opportunities, particularly via Grant's, she has over 20 years experience in the health and medical research sector, and Veronica has held senior executive and management positions both in government and the not-for-profit sector.

As I said, we were lucky to have her last month. She's back again for round two and it's now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Veronica for the presentation.

Veronica McCabe
Great now. Thank you, Dave. Yes, so as Dave mentioned, I'm going to be talking to today about research impact and you know, I've had a long career in, in health medical research and research funding, and research impact is something that has really evolved and grown as a sort of a focus for research funders and not just research funders. So I think it's just an important to be aware of what what it is and I'm going to talk a little bit about, you know, a bit more about the like, some of the principles and some of the, you know, definitions, and sort of that sort of a context of of what it looks like.
And then moving to talk about how it looks in a grant application and what it might look like and what sort of information you might need to include.
So yeah, as Dave said, if you can put some questions in the chat and we'll be monitoring that and I will leave some time at the end as well to deal with any, any questions, both written ones and anything you want to just add in.
OK, so to get started, what's it all about? This research impact and why does it matter? So increasingly, there's been interest or growing interest over probably a period of maybe 10 plus years of really having a focus on what happens to research and what happens to, you know, funding, research funding, funding that's spent on research and what's the benefit of the return is if you think like a return on investment, if you want to be, if we want to break it down to a bit more of a succinct thinking, but it's actually the benefits to society, the benefits beyond that point of doing the research project.
And from governments, obviously it's public funding, so wanting to know, you know what we're getting for that research, the funding that governments are putting in. But equally, you know, I've worked in the not-for-profit sector. In organisations that have a focus on health and medical research and donors want to know so, you know, we get a lot of now sophisticated donors who are very keen to invest in research and they see themselves as investors in research and they are very much like to know that sort of that big picture and and you know what the, you know those those bigger benefits will be realised.
And just to sort of give a bit of context to that, in the UK they had a they had an exercise going on the research excellent framework, which is where they started to really build a whole body of information and it's actually seven-year every seven years, there's a the university sector has to provide impact case studies and they are assessed and graded and there's a huge wealth of information in them and I'm going to give you a link to that database so you can actually go and look at some.

In the UK it actually has a bearing on the funding they get as well, now in Australia, we, there was an engagement and impact assessment exercise similar to that run in the UK, which was organised through the Australian Research Council and that started in 2016/2017 with the pilot and then there was a full exercise done in 2018. It's sort of on a pause at the moment, because it's being reviewed to understand what that might look like into the future. So just wanted to sort of give you a sort of a scene setting of, it's an important consideration and you know, it's something that's obviously going to be continuing. So, it's definitely an important area.
So just to start with some definitions about what research impact is, and I've put up two here. So we've got the NHMRC, they describe it as the verifiable outcomes and that's an important way the verifiable, you know, having evidence for this, that research makes to knowledge, health, economy and/or society, and then further on the effective research after it's been adopted and adopted for use or used to inform further research.
And then the Australian Research Council have a very similar kind of definition, and this is the contribution that research makes.
So just again, the Australian Research Council’s definition is the contribution that research makes to economy, society, environmental culture, beyond the contribution to academic research. So it's that thing about it being taken and used, so it's the use of the research into the broader sectors and just wanted to also add in some some definitions that you know are commonly used or associated with research impact.

So we've got here, just so if you're familiar with them, we've got research translation, which is, that's the movements of research from the academic centre sector into policy and practise as an example. So it's sort of bridging that gap between the knowledge gained from research and its application.
Knowledge transfer, which is often just a one way process of moving knowledge into the hands of people who can you put it to practical use.

Then knowledge exchange, which is a two-way process of sharing knowledge between different stakeholders in a way that's sort of mutually beneficial.

And then we have stakeholders, users and beneficiaries. So stakeholders are you know people or organisations that have an interest in your research. Users are those who will use it. So we often have a term as well next user, so if we take an example, an example if you're a biomedical researcher, a scientist as I was a basic scientist, you know, you may discover, you know, an interesting pathway that has an implication, looks at an implication in disrupting the growth of cancer cells or the next user of that could be someone who will develop a particular compound or molecule that might be then a drug target. So they could be the next user and the next user could be somebody who perhaps organised runs a clinical trial, designs a clinical trial. So it's just these users can be a multiple chain of people.
And their beneficiaries are the, if you like the end users, because they're the ones who are going to be benefiting from the from the research.
And in terms of types of impact, these are just some like domains, these are just a sample with plenty more that could add in. We could add education or we could add in technological.
But just to sort of give you a bit of a flavour of areas of focus for research impact, so you know, economic obviously is about sort of monetary gains or savings cost savings.
Environmental I think, speaks to itself. It's about, you know, management of, you know, could be natural resources, climate, so when the researchers had an impact on making some changes there or informing something, cultural is a could be a behaviour change in society or changing opinions.
You know, social is is not too dissimilar, I guess from cultural. It's again that sort of social change; health, health and well-being you know where we see, you know reduced mortality, morbidity improvement in quality of life. Political is how policy can be influenced the development of policies, and knowledge is probably more of the academic context of of, of and it's really about new knowledge. So research being used to form new knowledge. So again that was just to give you a bit of a sort of an idea of some of the some of the areas that we're impact research impact can be manifested.
And our research impact takes a long time. I think that's well acknowledged that it's not a, you know, a two year cycle and it could be like a 20 year cycle. I'll show you an example of that as well of what you know, what would impact would look like in a real example.
But just to sort of run through some of the steps that are involved and it's, I presented this as sort of a linear pathway, it may not all. It's generally not a linear pathway and different things can sort of interplay with it. But if we start at the bottom, we've got inputs and that's really what you need. So that's funding, you know, facilities to do research, protocols, knowledge, expertise. Then the activities are what you do, so that's really where you obviously you're conducting your research. So that's the, you know the methods of collaboration, experiments that trials whatever it is, it's this sort of research activities. The outputs are the products of research. So that's publications, it could be guidelines, it could be a device patents.
And then the outcomes are awareness and use of outputs. So this is when it sort of starts moving along. So, you know citations is an example of that from publications. We get citations and could get further income if say from my patents, media coverage and/or uptake of medical devices, for example.
And then the impacts are really the culmination of all these different stages beforehand and it's really when you start seeing that change in society, so it could be like a health and well-being change, you know, improved health at the you know as an example.
And now the three first three imports activities. Outputs are sort of within your control as of research you know you control those components, you know getting the funding, doing the research and you know producing the products. The second, the further the last two outcomes could probably influence an outcome. But you know can't necessarily control it and impacts are really you know when it's having beyond sort of your immediate control.
Talk a little bit more about outcomes and impacts, just as a a bit of a you know, to illustrate what they may look like and to to show you what what might be you know, is this an outcome? Is this an impact? And sometimes it's not clear cut. So, just a device as you know research has been led to creation of a device which is now licenced for sale in the in the US and Europe.
And that is actually an outcome, because it's until it becomes monetised. So until it becomes available and there's money being generated then it would have an economic impact.
The next one, so research has then been used to update health policies, and these are very generic and very, you know, sort of bland. But just to give you a bit of an example.
So that is also an outcome, because yes, the research has moved and it's now, you know, being used to inform a health policy when that health policy is then embedded and it's being enacted and then we're starting to see some changes. That's when it becomes an impact.
And then finally, research has been widely circulated on social media, lots of discussion about it, which is fantastic to get widespread coverage, but that's also an outcome because, and this won't be harder to measure because what the outcome will be is well, what happens as a result of that discussion? And I guess if we take as a very recent example, if you think of COVID-19, you know, there was obviously lots and lots of discussion about, you know, vaccines and you know, that did obviously change some behaviours and could also argue there was a bit of a negative outcome in, in some circles. But, it was really, it's when you look at what happens in society and that's actually much harder to measure. But I just wanted to sort of show you, you know, what you might think is an impact is an outcome and it's not always clear cut.
Now, I just wanted to give you an example from, this is from the UK, I mentioned they've got this research excellence framework and a database of case studies, and I just pulled one out just to show you the timeline. It's just to illustrate, you know, that this is something that happens over a long time.

So, I've really oversimplified this, so apologies you know to leaving out a lot of data, but just to sort of to showcase it.
So it's about the approval of tamoxifen for breast cancer prevention and it started in 2002 with this breast cancer international breast cancer intervention studied. And then as a consequence of that, there was follow up from the trial and the results that were published.
We started demonstrating the preventative effect, and I should just say in 2002 was a very mixed, you know, there was obviously, you know, not a clear cut understanding of if it was going to be preventative or not. And this is for women with a high risk of breast cancer.
So then from 2007, and there was actually a lot more publication and follow up done between 2007 and 2013, but just for illustrative purposes, I kept it quite simple. But as a consequence of that, the American Cancer Society then took that, and had made a recommendation for prophylactic use of tamoxifen in 2016. It was then licenced here in Australia for breast cancer prevention. And then finally in 2018, it was approved for use in the UK. So, you can see that's like a 16-year timeline and even you know if we go from the point of the, in the last sort of when it was being recommended, it was over, still over three to four years. So it's it is, you know, it's well recognised that it's not something that happens very quickly, but what's important is somehow tracking that in this case study. And if you have opportunity to go, I would highly recommend just going through and having a look at some. You can see they do actually talk through all the different steps that were involved.
So, just to summarise that one, their impact as they described it was access tamoxifen as a long term differential treatment for women at increased risk of breast cancer, and that was achieved from influencing international clinical guidelines and providing evidence, and that's facilitated this new use and the way they've shown that the evidence they can demonstrate that is publications, their own publications from the trial, but also you know looking to other countries where they had regulatory submissions or whatever that might have been and and also media releases. So, I just wanted to you know again give you the the example of how that sort of looks in a, I guess a real life or real case.
Now just to move along to talk about research impact in grant applications. So as I've already said, it's now you know quite a fixed part of the of the grant application process and its assessment criteria often include that or it may be something you're asked to write about as part of your application, so there's sort of two, two layers to it, and, in some cases, it's a retrospective, so that's where you're asked to describe some research, and it'll be, you know, what's to take an impact. So research impact that's happened if we take that breast cancer, tamoxifen example, that's the impact and then to describe some of the research you did, that was a part of that and that's a retrospective way of looking at it. And that's NHMRC have a with their, when you're applying for MINHMRC, you will have to do that and I'll going to show you how that looks.
Or perspective, so some funders will ask for you: are you putting in your proposal? Is what do you think the impact of this will be? So what's that prospective impact into the future? And you may also be asked what type of input they may describe that for you, they may actually say, you know what will be the health impact of this or, you know, probably wouldn't be as blunt as that, but they may actually contain it within, you know, talk about impact for a population and and I'll just show you I've had a look and I found a couple of examples in grant applications.

So this is the national Breast Cancer Foundation. And this is actually in, in their the proposal you're putting in a proposal to them. And I've just highlighted there where they talk about they actually combine significance, alignment impact and translation in one sections, quite a lot of information to get in there. But they talked a comment on the likelihood of your proposal may provide significant knowledge health.
Economic and or social impact.
And then, further on about, you know methodologies are going to use, but also, they then reference the population. So, you know how it's going to impact breast cancer outcomes for Australians, including populations with the poorest breast cancer outcomes. So they're, you know, being quite not prescriptive, they're, you know, defining obviously the group of potential beneficiaries for you and then this one, this is from the the Heart Foundation. They again have ask for you to write about expected outcomes now interestingly, they talk about outcomes/impacts, which is sometimes where this the language is, is still sort of evolving. There's not again a right or a wrong, but they, you know, talk give you latitude to talk about expected outcomes or impacts of your research project and how they'll benefit cardiovascular health.
So it's important to, you know, be clear. You know, when you're looking at grant applications, you know, if they're asking for impact, you know, are they being, is there a particular domains of impact or no knowledge health, economical, social.
Is there a, you know, a beneficiary group they've identified and making sure you're obviously, you know, align, you know, with that and those requirements?
So just thinking then about well, if I got to write about research impact and maybe not focusing too much on these two, these are just to illustrate what it could look like is there's really 2 questions that you need to ask yourself and one is who might benefit from my research? and how might they benefit? So, two simple questions who and the how? and it really helps to you know elevate you know the detail of the research and the methodologies and just step back and go who might benefit and how might they benefit.
And then and you can use that. This is like applicable whether you're writing about, you know, respective or retrospective.
And if we look at a little bit of a framework of breaking it down in a particular, you know, set of questions. And again, we're trying to what we're trying to do is create a narrative. So you may have like 102 hundred words to write about this. So just giving a bit of a way of forming, formatting it. And I found this from I've put the reference in there from a website, it was a blog post that was in there from somebody who does this quite a lot and it's really these five, you know, five sort of statements a problem.
That's really, you know, what is the problem I'm trying to do? What's my research, you know, stepping right back, what is the research I'm doing trying to solve? What's the question, the underpinning question? So that's high level clear. You know simply stated the solution. Well, that's the research you're doing. So your your research is helping to address this problem.
And then the outputs are, you know, what am I going to produce from this? And you know what's going to be the likely products and then the beneficiaries who is going to benefit?.
And I think being the more specific you can be about that, the better you know. So if you're doing a research project in a particular geographical area, we'll talk about that. You know that's think about who the beneficiaries are. You know, if it's a cohort of particular patients, you probably could get some numbers on who they are that you know, that grouping and then the impact and this would in a prospective case this would probably be a short statement because you know it's really thinking about you know sort of those domains it will, it will fit into.
And just to give you a bit of an illustration of what that might look like. And again, I've made a very simple case study here. I again took this from an existing case study, which is, it was from the the Australian Research Council. That's engagement and impact assessment exercise because again, there's a whole body of wealth of information in there that you can go and and and look at. And I just really simplified this down so you know, apologies again if I've oversimplified it, but just to again just go through those five steps.
So the problem this is one about Caesareans and the increasing numbers of Caesarean sections and obviously associated problems or challenges with that and so a solution is to do a trial to compare standard maternity care with continuity of care and to see if that does have any difference and obviously the hypothesis is that there will be a difference and it will be a more positive outcome for you know for women.
And from there will be outputs, people publishing from the trial could be conference presentation, might be guidelines. There might be some you know very specific communication you would do to particular you know, society or whatever, you know, professional bodies, you know that you'd be working with and the impacts.

So the beneficiaries would be obviously pregnant women and their babies and midwives who are providing the service and, you know, the hospital maternity services. Remember, beneficiaries can be, you know, people and organisations.
And so the the the impacts then could be changes in policy, it could be improved experience for mothers. So health and well-being sort of impacts and economic cost savings, now I think as I said before, being more specific. Obviously if you're writing this and you were you know you may be able to talk about the particular hospitals you're working in or the particular health service, so you could actually be a bit more specific and you could probably put numbers in and that's obviously the more specific you can be the better.
And a good way to you know do a sense check of writing. Something like this is always get somebody else to read it. So again you know if you think about mentioned in the last workshop when you're writing a grant application, you know you're think about the audience and the audience's review is obviously a big part of that. Similarly with this, they'll be reading this particular perspective case because they're looking at your application is you know that's who I'm writing for. So I've got to make sure that it's understandable and this should be a snapshot of your project. And it's also something that you can, the value for you is, when you write something like this, it gives you a really nice way of succinctly articulating what it is you're doing and why, and that you know as you move through your career is going to be so beneficial because there might be many opportunities where you get to talk and it could be you're talking to a potential donor as in, you know, a private donor who might have an interest in the area you're working and may want to help support you and being able to articulate in this kind of way, it's going to be really valuable and also a good check is, you know, is the balance of information between these sort of five statements and, you know, if you find that you're talking a lot about the problem and the solutions, so you're sort of re-presenting your research and that's the main, like biggest content then probably just need to reframe it a bit and make sure you're balancing out the level of information between them.
And the other thing as well, this allows you to do is also to think, well, I've got my beneficiaries, I think I'm you know I'm sort of known what I've got an idea what impact might be generated and but I've got a good way of communicating with my beneficiaries. You know, if I want to find out for midwives, you know what the experience is for them, how am I going to do that. So it allows you as well just to sort of link things together.
And there is a huge amount of tools out there. I just wanted to show one here for you just to show you what you can do to help planning, and I'm going to give you a whole list of resources that you can go and look at because it's, it's again, you do not need to start from scratch with this.

So, this is from University College Dublin. They've actually got a huge amount of work. I've done a huge amount of work on research impact and they've got tool kits and training and materials that you can go and access and resources such as this one and this canvas here is a way of almost doing what I just talked about in the previous slides and it gets you to step through, you know the challenge.
You can do the numbers, obviously, numbers help you just to think about it is the challenge, the problem response, the solution beneficiaries and you can list them there. Then what is your offering? That's #4, how you're going to connect with them and potential impact. And then there's a few other boxes as well to add in and you can do this like with post it notes, so it's just a, you know a way of again helping to sort of simplify, you know this part of the if you're having to put this narrative together.
OK. So then moving on to talk about retrospective. So this is where you've got to present, you know your, some research you've done that's had an impact and in the with, I'm going to use the NHMRC as an example, we're going to think it's a good one to know about. So within the two grants programmes, the investigative grants and the synergy grants investigators are you know those sort of career development awards and the NHMRC provide you know throughout different, you know throughout the all of your research career stage at different stages you can apply for.
And then as soon as your grants are, you know, these most disciplinary grants for most disciplinary teams to work collectively now within them, they actually ask you to provide a sort of a research impact, statement they call it. But it's a section that talks about research impact. And it's very specifically and HMRC don't consider don't include perspective. It's about, you know, looking at something that's already happened. They also have 4 domains that they specifically could work with in terms of research impact within these four domains of economic, knowledge, health and social.
And you know, there obviously, as I've described earlier, you know the economic about, you know cost savings or efficiencies, knowledge, new knowledge. So it's the new knowledge that's being created from, from research and health. You know that's obviously improvements, you know diagnostics, you know changes in sort of health outcomes.
And then social is a bit more like about improving the health of society. So it could be, you know improving access to different services. So, when you're writing for the NHMRC, you actually select one of these. So when you write this section, this impact section, you select one, you can select more than one and sometimes research impact could be across number.
It there's no need to select four and in some ways it's better to be, you know, more specific. So you don't get extra you know, if you if you select four, you've got to be able to demonstrate impact across 4 domains. So it's not really in your, it's not beneficial more beneficial to do 4 as opposed to one.
So, what it looks like, you create this statement which has these three components. It talks about reach and significance and so that's really about the spread and/or diversity of beneficiaries that have been impacted. So, it's how many and what sort of groupings they were, who they were and the significance is sort of the degree to which there's been a change or you know has informed changes to policies practise, you know or the health of a particular group.
Then you talk about the research programme now. The research programme is a sort of a cohesive body of research, so it's not a single like clinical study. And it really is how that programme of research has. Then, you know, led to this impact that you're describing. And then the next level down is you talk about the research you as the researcher, what you contribute to that research programme.
And it obviously this is relative to where you are on your career. So if you're a very early career researcher, you know your contribution you know would be valid, but it may not be as significant as somebody, not significant just in terms of scale, so it still is not an insignificant contribution, but it may be a small contribution and the expectation would be compared to somebody who's obviously at the you know a very experienced well into their career then they're you know contribution obviously could be, would be, might be a multiple contributions. So, it's all relative to opportunity and that's obviously a big part of putting in applications and you know is where you are in your career and it's that's a consideration.

Now, all of this together is 450 words, which actually isn't a lot if you break it down like 150 words for each of these. So it's, you know again quite succinct in what you're saying. And you also have to include evidence to show this, so you know that could be, you know it could be, you know publications, it could be media releases, it could be, you know, a policy. So just where you can demonstrate you know what you're saying backs up what you're saying.
And I just thought again give you a bit of an example, sometimes it's easy to see an example. So we take COVID-19 and I just thought this was an easy one to start with. Easy as in, we all know what the impact has been. So I think we don't have to, you know, talk about spend too much time on what that impact was. And so this is a development of the first vaccine, the Oxford University vaccine and just to run through again the stages, so there was other timeline, you know it started in 2012 with design and construction of the vaccine platform, and then there was a vaccine, in 2017 from MERS and then 2020, it was modified, the platform was modified for SAR-CoV-2 and then 2021, designer clinical trials and all the work that's followed after that. So if you were, if we're at the stage of, say, writing an NHMRC application, and this was of the example, you're going to use, while the obviously you could talk about that impact and you might pick the health as one of the as the domain of selecting because of the, you know, vaccine, this is what's happened and you know the consequences of that.
The programme of work would be this, this is the programme of the research programme because it sits under that and the thing about when you're writing retrospectively because everyone acknowledges it's a long it happens over a long time, you may well be going back to 2017, or before that. So that's again absolutely fine. So this will be the programme, the research programme you might describe and then if your role was, say, in developing the vaccine for MERS, that's what you would talk about me as a researcher. This is my contribution and it could be that you had technical inputs or intellectual inputs and that's what you would describe.
And, so just thought that was an easy way to illustrate what this might look like.
And I mentioned that you know, evidence is a really important part of when you're presenting this information. So it's verifiable and it's a word that's used quite a lot when talking about research impact.
And yeah, so again, just another example here, just to show how you know the research, the impact and the evidence lines up, so this was a… I'm talking about again another case study I found, which is changing guidelines for treating type 2 diabetes, this is actually from University College Dublin, one of their case studies.
Their research, you know, looked at multiple studies of obesity and diabetes and found that, you know, weight loss of greater than 10% disrupted the disease.
The impact was it changed, led to change in practise internationally. You know there was nice approval of a particular medication and then the evidence that they showed was the updated guidelines, publications and media articles. So that's sort of how it fits together in you know with the research, the impact and the evidence, now in terms of what evidence looks like, somebody wants to describe it, it's a bit like stamp collecting or I don't know if anyone remembers when used to get your passport stamped to, you know, preview a travel somewhere.
And it is a little bit maybe like if you want to you know think of it in simple terms, but it's how you're collecting and I think it's the collecting of it and really want to start as soon as you can, as early as you can. So I mean obviously academic publications are evidence and you would be collecting that information and you know using resources to do that. But also citations. How? How you where your work's been cited?
Then you know, media coverage. If there's any media stories you know, try and capture them, you know, find links, collect the dates. You can also go if something's you know you've been working on or have been involved in, you know is getting some good coverage on social media, you know, again try and capture that if there's any guidelines, policies, published reports, government reports where you know, you're you deal with the research you've been working on has had a role in that.
You know, try and capture that and even and also testimonials and user feedback so you know if we could think right back to one of the examples I gave with the potential, you know, Caesarean increase in caesarean births.
You know user feedback, they could be from midwives that you may have to cut that you could capture and that's fine again, you can if you said a workshop with them, you might sort of reference that workshop, have a date and capture some of that feedback. So they're all valid examples.
And the earlier you can start doing that the better, because you know it's something that you don't want to be trying to do when you're writing your application and just wanted to finish really by just showing you this as an article that was I think 2022. This was written in Nature and it was really about somebody who created an impact CV. And I think it's interesting the actual researcher is and some of you may know Katherine Andrews from Griffith, who's you know, very experienced researcher and she herself, you know, started off saying it's not easy to demonstrate research impact, even when there's a clear clinical need, as in malaria drug development.
So what she did, is created, started creating an impact CV and I've put the link in here and which is to the Australian Association of Medical Research Institutes. They actually did a piece of work to create a framework and it's mainly for organisations to help them start measuring and understanding how they would manage or measure and capture research impact and have a set of indicators within that, and she took that framework and sort of flipped it into ACV.
And now you wouldn't have to use every single indicator they've got in there. You could select out, but it has it down in domains of knowledge, health and it gives you examples. You know, publications that just breaks it down and then what it also has in there is what she's done is also put in a little space to write, you know, a bit of a sort of a case study, a mini case study in each section. So it's just a tool. You could equally do this in a spreadsheet. It doesn't have to be, but somewhere where you're building up, I guess, this body of information that you can draw on and use.
So just to summarise, impacts of research is an important consideration for funders, not just funders. I think many other you know, stakeholders. It's something that's got increasing interest.
It does happen over a long time. It's, you know, well acknowledged that is the case.
And I think start capturing and tracking evidence as you know as early as possible. We'll just, you know, serve you well and this is going to be made available this presentation, so you will obviously be able to be able to have a look at all these tools and resources, so I've just listed a number of places where you can where you can go with this tool kit, worked examples of case studies and then the final two here. One of them is the ARC database of case studies and then also the most recent one from the UK Research Excellence Framework and exercise, so that's those two at the end. So that was it for me. I'll just now find out if we've got any questions.
So if anybody, if there's anything anybody wanted to add or any questions, so this will be available for you. So that got a couple of minutes still,10 minutes at the end if anybody wanted to ask anything.
Well, ok, looks like we're all good. So I think we'll finish there and just thank everybody for their time this afternoon. And yeah, enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.
So I think we have got a question.
A link between your research and yeah. Look, so Susan, yes, so it is not something that's going to be immediate, so it is almost like you have to keep a watch on things, so, staying aware of your we 'cause he'll be obviously a set of guidelines in your particular clinical area for example. So it's trying to have an awareness of things that are changing.
It's a bit of a Longbow, so, but I think you, you know, you're fair enough to see when something changes and you've had your research started some time ago, but there's been a change in a policy then that's a fair, you know, reference to say, you know, I did this piece of research, there has been a change and you can demonstrate there's that new policy is there.
And I think you just, yeah, you just have to keep tracking that.
Look, I mean again, you know, when you're in early researcher, it always probably seems a bit daunting with this. I mean as you're you know starting, you know against starting small, so you'll apply for I guess you know maybe a fellowship at Queensland Health where you, you know from that, you, you know, you'll start generating that evidence as you go along, but it's not, it's all relative to research. So if you're applying as a relative to where you are in your careers, so if you're newly starting newly in research, then yes, the expectations you know are very different. So I think you just have to be mindful. It's more about being mindful as you're going through your career that this is something you will be building up. But I think as an early career researcher and you know the expectations are very different.
Yep, Susan, I've just got a question. There are many things that contribute to a policy change into, yes. Look, it's not. Yes, Susan, I get your point actually that there are many things that contribute to a policy change. And yeah, research does only form part of it, but it's an important part. It's like well, without that it didn't. You know, it's still a contribution and I think that's the point, you've got to make is to be making is that it's still a body of research contributed to that. And that was an important part of it. So the end point will be the policy change and your research earlier on played a part in that.

And the recordings I'll have to refer to ORI on that one, where they'll be made available.
OK. Yeah. So yeah, ORI will be dealing with them. Yeah, with that and actually making them available. But you as a, because you've been attended, you should be able to access it. Is that right?
Yeah, it'll be saved in the chat. So, if you, uh, hear up there about the workshop, you'll be able to access it, but it'll also be made available as well.
OK. Thanks everybody.

Video transcript

Julie White  
Good afternoon and welcome everybody. For those that don't know me, my name is Julie White and I'm the Executive Director of the Office of Research and Innovation in the Clinical Planning and Service Strategy Division at Queensland Health.

Thank you so much indeed for joining us for Gold Medal research. The webinar organised by the Office of Research and Innovation.
This is part of our education and training series for Queensland Health researchers.
Today, hopefully we will start to create some new partnerships for Queensland Health and researchers. I am reliably informed that over 100 people have registered, which is terrific news, but firstly I would like to respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners, the Turrbal and Yuggera people of the land on which this event is taking place today and I pay my respects, for both elders, both past and present.

Now, so just some brief housekeeping matters.
The webinar is being recorded as I hope you all know and will be popping it on the ORI portal, once we complete. So can I ask you just to keep your cameras and your microphones just turned off? And please put all the questions that hopefully you've got loads of questions and you put them into the chat box for us. So we can answer those at the end of the webinar. And obviously, if we run out of time because as I said, time is quite tight. If we've run out of time to get your question today, the team will come back to you next week. Now, today's webinar draws inspiration from nominal success Australia achieved at the recent Paris Olympics and Paralympic Games.
At the Paralympics, Australian athletes won 63 medals, including 18 gold medals and 28 Queenslanders won medals in five different sports. The Paralympics Australia finished 9th overall on the medal tally and in the Olympics also saw Australia reach new heights with its largest ever medal haul, 53 Olympic medals, including 18 gold medals and securing 4th place on the world stage.
Most importantly, QLD athletes played a pivotal role, winning half of Australia's Olympic gold medal.
Nine out of the 18 and winning 28 of Australia's 53 medals, just over half. So in fact, if Queensland was actually a nation in its own right, at the Paris Olympics, we would have ranked 12th in place out of the 200 countries which competed, which is really quite remarkable.

So obviously, we hope to continue this sporting success in LA in four years time and of course in Brisbane where we will be host and we would also like to ensure this lasting legacy for improving health and fitness of the Queensland population, as we ramp up to 32.

Now today, I'm delighted that we have three expert speakers, Professor Robyn Littlewood, who heads up health and well-being Queensland Professor John Kearney, director of the Queensland Centre for Olympics and Paralympic Studies and the Co- Director of Health and Well-being Centre for the Research Innovation at the University of Queensland.

Our first speaker is Mark Opar, head of health strategy at VALD, a Queensland Sports and Health Technology Company, which itself has had some really success, of course, all across the globe. So with that, I will invite Mark to deliver his presentation to you all. Thank you very much indeed, Mark.

Mark Opar  
Thanks, Julie. If I think that is sharing, I think I've been successful in navigating that.
This is a great honour and thank you to Queensland Health for the opportunity to be part of today's panel.
I've loved the Olympics and Paralympics since I was a child in 1992, with Kieran Perkins and Louise Savage through to Michael Johnson doing the double of Atlanta Freeman and Thorpe at our last Home Olympics and I genuinely look forward to the event every four years.
The thought of having an Olympics in my home city is thrilling and it should be exciting for everybody in the audience today given the opportunities that it will present for so many of us in the next eight years.
I'm sure some of you are wondering what I'm doing here amongst such esteemed speakers, I'm obviously not a professor.
Ultimately, VALD is an incredible Queensland story, a Queensland founded company in 2015. Think importantly, given today's theme, our first device was spun out of a research PhD and most importantly, it provided insights into a real world problem which has helped our company be successful with hamstring injuries, which if you have to run fast, are generally a problem for people.
That success has allowed us to grow our company to the point now where we have 280 staff globally and proudly we employ 150 Queenslanders and we are still headquartered in Brisbane today. At the core of what we do, we objectively and accurately measure strength, movement, and function.
You might ask how that fits into in at the Olympics, but we ultimately leave the Olympic motto. We measure faster, higher and stronger, and I've actually learnt recently the Olympic motto has been updated to include together and we certainly leave that part of the motto as well. We work closely with our global staff. There's a picture there, we flew most of them out to Australia last month.
But most importantly, we work closely with our clients as well to ensure we're meeting their requirements and addressing their problems, which is most important. I'm about to share some slides around our kind of involvement with the Olympics and we're particularly proud of them, but it's important for us to note that we are the difference between winning and losing, winning a gold medal, or missing an Olympic final.

I can tell you right now that the winner of the 2025 NRL/AFL, English Premier League and more than likely the NFL, will be clients involved. But on the flip side of that, the teams that finished last and the teams that are relegated are also clients of ours. So in sport, we've sport, we've not become a winning standard. We've actually become an operational standard.
And we've ultimately done that because we quantify things that matter.
The coaches, conditioning staff and medical staff to help get the best out of athletes and part of my remit is to ensure that we're starting to get the best outcomes for patients as well with the use of our systems.
So in terms of the last Olympics, we support the world's best. These logos represent Olympic committees and institutes who we have as clients through the Paris Games. All of those logos finished top in the top 15 in the medal count in Paris and Central to that obviously is the AAS as well, who are lucky enough to have as a client which extends to supporting Australia's best, which we also do. We have all but one state-based institute as the client evolves, that's not QAS, so they are also a client of ours.
And we're extremely proud to have great partners like the QAS, given it's from our home state. The QAS utilise multiple vault systems across four of the different satellite train locations and then there are some sports who actually fund our access to our equipment independently and invariably in the Australian Olympic funding model that's related to those sports that win when it's most of our medals. And at the moment you know BMX and swimming Australia also have access to the to our equipment.
In terms of research, legacy innovation going towards 2032, Australia's success at the Olympic Games demands innovation. The two lists here on the left is the medal tally from the Olympics and on the right is from the Paralympics and you know the the most stark thing is how well we compete against countries with significantly greater populations in both Olympics and Paralympics. So we certainly punch above our weight. Funnily enough, the Netherlands is the other one, that do really, really well there.
They were one of the logos we had on a previous slide, and we actually flew two of their staff out earlier this year. So, they're obviously implementing our technology particularly well as part of a really strong model that delivers results.
So we need to innovate and there's paths to innovation and there's probably a couple of paths. One is driven by elite Sport.
And you and you see that in a few forms, like GPS is probably a great example where it started in elite sport and started to permeate down into general population. Formula One always drives innovation, motor vehicles, the things that are in Formula One cars 10 years ago, are probably in our cars now and that continues to happen with innovations at Formula One drives and then athlete wellness monitoring is another example for 20 to 25 years.
That's been scientifically monitored and now we're starting to get access to that in our in our general wellness applications, and like on our mobile devices like Apple Health and and Google Health and the like. I think most relevant for the people in the audience today though is the innovation driven from the general population and healthcare into sport because that's where the opportunity may live for you coming into 2032, they're probably less but a couple of examples I was able to come up with was certainly the appreciation of genetics and blood pathology, things that probably found their home in the delivery of healthcare first, which elite practitioners and elite athletes are starting to lean into a little bit more now, and the challenge for you is going to be to try to identify problems in your clinical population and their potential to make their way into an elite sports solution as a funding and grant path for you. So what you'll be looking for is something that might produce a 10 to 20% change to a person in poor health.
Which might be able to lead to a .1% change for the highest performing people in the world, and .1% doesn't sound like much.
This is what point 1% looks like at the last Olympics. It is the difference between Noah Lyles and anyone from second through to Kenneth Bedner in seventh. I won't remember Kenneth in four years time as great as his achievement is in making an Olympic final, and that's the margins that we are talking about at this point. He ends and certainly those 10 to 20% changes can manifest in those really small points of difference to the elite athlete.
So where do we fit in in this innovation and kind of research picture and how that relates and pertains to you? Research is in our DNA, our company started out of a PhD, and we continue to drive research and have a commitment to ongoing research. We externally validate our own products rather than doing that internally. We believe in the independent assurance given the people who use our equipment that it is valid and reliable. We have the VALD applied research initiative which is funded $350,000 worth of research in recent years and focused on particular areas where we are looking to you know we think a problem's worth addressing where our systems may have a role to play and namely, that it's been women's sport.
Lowering osteoarthritis, people at risk of falling and people who are at risk of limited independence as they age. If that's not your area of interest, we also continue to independently fund novel projects as well. So if there's something a little bit different out there that you're thinking about, we're always up for that conversation to understand what you're trying to do and how we might be able to play a part in it.
Ultimately, VALD's mandate is the democratisation of access to technology in sport, and then going further into general health and the general population in the acts, in the instances where access is limited and it's difficult to democratise, we ultimately take it upon ourselves to do that, and we've lived that in the recent 18 months. We've basically built this band here that you see and we have a couple of staff members that basically drive all over Australia, testing people on our equipment, we've tested 60,000 people in the last 18 months of view to having 70,000 by the end of this month and we target under finance sporting organisations who can't access the equipment, not that our equipment is excessively expensive, but there are, you know, budgets are always a thing, new women's leagues, and also a bit of a focus on high school pilot programmes, so we can understand coming out of 2032, what our future champions look like when they're at high school as a way of now more accurately identifying talent.
So then, there's the Olympic legacy in how this opportunity and research comes together. And certainly John and Robyn will also talk about their perspectives of the legacy. For us, the the Olympic legacy after 2032 will be the democratisation of technology and cutting edge approaches into the general population, which is where we'll be able to make the most impact. For those of you in the audience, I encourage you to look for real world problems. That's where the secret is in being able to solve, you know, make, you know, significant just to identify these problems, because the the fantastic thing is that support will be available like never before, and probably you'll probably never experience an opportunity like this again in your working career, potentially. It is going to be such an exciting time for anybody in this in this state.
That legacy, where we said extending from is this scenario here into the general population like I spoke to. So being able to use this technology and make a difference in the lives of people who are experiencing lower limb osteoarthritis are in high risk of falls and those who are struggling to maintain their independence, that is what gets me excited about working within our company. You know, the sprinter who strands his hamstring or not, it's tragic if it happens in the Olympics, but someone who can't pick up their grandkids after a joint replacement is hugely impactful. And that's what excites us as a company.
In closing, this is very cheesy, but I am a proper Olympics nerd. I'll lean back to restraints, Olympic history in our last Film Olympics and and John Farnham and Olivia Newton-John and the song ‘Dare to dream’, and I encourage the people in the audience to dare to dream. Don't be deterred by the nay-sayers, but people say that's not a good idea, that the idea will never work. Dream, if you're unsure where to start, we're happy to help because we are here to be part of a legacy.

Precision and measurement have allowed for the application of our technology in innovative population groups. If you need help quantifying faster, stronger, and higher to drive innovation, we are here to work together with you and that can be a number of forms, from in-kind support to basically a breakfast or a coffee to chat over your ideas and dreams. Please, the QR code has a link to my e-mail address. Please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present today.

Julie White  
Great! Thank you so much, Mark, really terrific presentation and I'm sure there's going to be tonnes of questions, in fact, there's already one at at the moment. So for a handover to our second speaker, friend and colleague, the rather fabulous Robyn Littlewood, CEO of Health and Wellbeing Queensland Health. Health and Wellbeing Queensland was set up in 2019 as a statutory body to improve the health of Queenslanders. So over to you, Robyn.

Robyn Littlewood  
Thank you so much. Can I just ask you, can you see my presenter screen or can you see my screen?
Because I actually can. Can you hear me, Julie?

Julie White  
Yeah, absolutely.

Robyn Littlewood  
And can you see my proper screen?

Julie White  
I can see. Yeah, I can see your presentation. Yep.

Robyn Littlewood  
OK, good. Excellent. Look, it's really, really nice to be here and to listen to VALD, it's so it's so good and to listen to every single thing that's going on in Queensland because for me and my friends, so that's the University of Queensland, Department of Health, VALD and us, as well. I just feel like we've got this really right and so, I feel like for 2032, we've got so much that we can that we can show.

And I'm such a games nerd, I know over the past months it's been so difficult for me to focus and I have been like every day and I've still had the games playing, so the team here is sick of it because it was really hard for them as well. But they knew every single gold we won because I told them.
OK, So what I'm going to talk about today first is the games itself. So many of you may not know this from me, I had to go back to look at this and to look at when this began because this began a very, very long time ago. But there was an enormous gap in between there. But did you know? And I really like saying this, men competed naked. And I'm going to say that too, because that's an important point that I'm going, I'm going to raise. Every single game was fit for purpose for that place as well. So whether it be the city, the region, there's it's got to be different from the one before because it's got to be, it's got to provide those benefits as well.

So, I know that we've all seen everything that's just gone on in Paris and it has been absolutely amazing. Amazing. I feel like and there's no but’s because it just was. But I feel like for us, we're going to do so many things as well that's going to be relevant here. And that's the whole point. And often we get caught up in thinking, well, we're going to have to have a stadium and we're going to have to have a park and we're going to have to have a thing.
For us, we've got to, we've got to think about the things here that we absolutely need and how the games can actually provide a beacon for us so that we can then do so many things better and for us, we absolutely need it, especially around health. So I'm going to talk about legacy now because for me, again, it's really, really hard to know what, what does that actually mean. And for me, it was whether it's a tangible thing, intangible thing, whether it's positive, negative, whether it's planned, whether it's not.
So, that's been a really, really difficult path because there's not a single, you're going to have to, you're going to have to start here. It's going to have to be planned. You're going to have to start a year out, you're going to have to measure the data. And being researchers, you would all find this incredibly tough. The reason why is because you would be going. But what's the, what's the benefits? What's the process here? Well, they're actually isn't one. So, for us, we've actually ought to make it up, and because we're really big, so we've got some terrific partnerships, too, with research universities, the departments, Department of Health, etcetera. We've got we’ve got a sit in a room and we've got to agree. So, we've got to agree for us.
HWQ is all about health for us and that health legacy, and I really feel that we can absolutely do that. So, for me, we know that this has got to be around health. We know that we have started measuring it now already. In fact, we began to measure the data five years ago now when when we began.
We know that this has to be positive and the most important thing is, it's got to be planned and that measurement has got to be planned because you see so many things have been done so well, but you actually wouldn't know because the data isn't there to show it. So whether we, whether we think about the games in the, you know, in the past, the games that that has just been as well, I'm really, really keen to see the data. So did people start to eat, eat better to walk more, to run more? Do they feel better, things like that. And for me, I just, I just need to see that because I feel like we can absolutely prove that here and show that here and this is, this is why. So, for us, this has to be the best games that we can bring research into because I don't feel that's been a leading voice in the past. We have all of you and thinking about that it's the most exciting thing for us because a) we can innovate like you've never ever seen, and b) we can actually collect the data as well and show it.

So, I feel like this just might be the first time ever that a games can actually show an impact that's going to be really, really longer term. So what's our why? And many of you know this already. So one in two of us have got a chronic disease. We know that one in two and I think this was this was reported at the beginning of the year, it's never ever been as high as that.
And that one from the one in two becomes 3,4,5 predicted for 2035. So we are going to have to do something now. We know that one in two, in three of us live with overweight and obesity and it used to be one in four kids. Now it's actually one in three. So it's actually getting worse and that's brand new as well. We know that 9 out of 10 kids, even more, don't eat enough veggies, which I can't believe, but I do, because that would include the kids that I have myself, and two in three kids don't actually do enough exercise now. For me, that's the really, really tough one. When you think about the things that you know, I mean I'm, you know, pretty old now, but thinking about, you know, being on a bike, for me it was being out and doing stuff. The current environment doesn't allow for this. So kids are not eating veggies, they're not eating fruit. They're not doing enough sport. They're really, tired. They're tired, they're on screens and sleep for them is exceptionally hard, so the next thing for me the why, the median age of death gap here in Queensland is, this will shock you of course, but so down in Brisbane, the median age of death sits at about 80-82, I think, something like that. So that's me and that's many of you too. Up in the Far North, the median age of death sits at around 52.
So there's lots and lots of reasons for that, but that's a 30-year gap. For me that's absolutely outrageous. And we've got to do so much about that. And so using the partners that we've got and using the games as a beacon for us, thinking about health and prevention is the best thing that we can possibly do. So bringing it together for us is exactly the way that we're going to work.
So what? What have we done? What have they done to date? So, thinking about Beijing 2008, we know that they did some great things. You may remember they banned smoking at that time and did an amazing job. So that was so that was great for them. They looked at their disease surveillance as well and looked at their Department of Health as well, and did so much, so much work there.
The trouble was they didn't collect the data, so now, we don't, we don't know whether those differences are still there, whether that's been a sustainable shift for us. And that's absolutely the thing that we've got to do better and different. So, thinking about that, going to the London Games, that absolutely gives me hope. So this was this was back in 2012.

Back in 2009, there was this Go London and Get Set which was which was so good, because they actually measured it as well. So they found that kids actually moved, moved more. They then looked at that measurement again back in 2017 and found that effect was still there. For me, it's the most, that's the most amazing thing of a game.

So, this is about getting our kids out there, this is about getting our kids moving, for the next year, for the next generation as well, and I just feel like we can absolutely do that here. So, thinking about Tokyo 2020, so that was a hard one, that was really hard thinking about actually doing the games, delivering the games as well through a very, very tricky time, but then collecting the data, as well.

Again, I haven't yet to see the data from those games, but they could have done the most amazing work. Again, I don't know because I'm not sure that that was measured, I'm not sure that that was done. So therefore, I'm not quite sure. So thinking about that, think about the things that we can actually do.

The work here is amazing for us. So, we began about 5 1/2 years ago now that and that and that's gone exceptionally fast. We take a systems approach, but we also partner on every single thing we do.
So, right now making healthy happen. I really hope that you have all seen that we are now holding 12 government departments to account with us and 40 actions. So, every single week, we sit and talk about the work.

So, whether that's the work in schools, whether that's the work in health, whether that's the work in research, the most important thing we do is that we partner on research, and we've got our own Research Centre as well, that's with the University of Queensland Centre for Health and Wellbeing Research Innovation. They are absolutely brilliant with us and wrap everything, research the data, everything that we do, they support every single part of that as well.

So, having a look at our first report, which was released about a month ago, you can see the work that we have actually done to date. Thinking about this for 2028, this is, this will grow. Thinking about this for 2032, we've got a story and I'm so proud of that. So for us the University of Queensland and the Department of Health, we've got so much that we can show and we've already begun. So it's really, really great for us. So, thinking about this, number one, I'm just going to close with with saying I feel like this is going to be the first time that we can actually show a really amazing change and really, really grab that health legacy and do the right, the right work at the right time for the right city, as well. And we are so on to this already and thinking about that, our wonderful partners at the University of Queensland are right here and they're going to talk a little bit about the reasons why and how they are going to support all of it. Thank you.

Julie White  
Thanks so much, Robyn. That's fantastic. I had no idea about the disparity of 30 years. That is shocking.

Robyn Littlewood  
It's shocking.

Julie White  
Yes, shocking and eye opening. So look, thank you for that. And I'm sure that is going to stimulate a lot of questions. I'd like to now hand over to John Cairney from the University of Queensland. Thank you, John.

John Cairney  
Well, thanks everyone. And I, I do hope you can see I'm wearing a scarf today and this is repping Paralympics Australia and this was one of the great gifts that we received from our corporate partner at UQ Paralympics Australia in the last games. So, I’m going to follow on the line that Rob started, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper into one particular aspect of it when I, when I looked at what I was being asked to do, you know, tell us about key findings from across the games.
I could, we could spend well more than 15 minutes going over the research that's been done in this area, but I think there's a couple of issue. One issue in particular that I'd really like to focus on and do a little bit of a deeper dive, so hopefully I'll keep you with me on this on this journey and I will certainly leave lots of time for questions for all three speakers. I'm going to do a shout out to Mark. He doesn't need me to do it, but I just want to validate some of the things that Mark has been saying. I've had the good fortune over the last few months to to do some site visits. One was at Manchester City in the UK and more recently, I was at the University of Oregon and every time I'm in a gym strength and conditioning gym or another set up, I always take a look to see if I can see a VALD label and I can confirm that I do. So we're super proud of VALD and as a trooper'a brand that's really gone global in this space. So congratulations to Mark and his colleagues one more time. We could just advance the slide please.
I too want to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we are all meeting today, wherever that might be, and pay our respects to Elders, past, present and emerging. If you could advance the slide, please.
So again, I said I'm gonna talk about some key learnings and I really emphasise the word some. This is not a systematic review. This is a very selective review, but I want to raise an important issue, hopefully to generate some discussion and get us thinking a little bit about what we would expect reasonably as a potential outcome of hosting a major sporting event like the Olympics and Paralympics. And what might we do from a research perspective, to capture that information.
So, I've given you a screenshot here of an article by Adrian Bauman and colleagues. Adrian is well known to people in Queensland, I think to the world really, in terms of his his contributions, particularly to physical activity and health. And this is, I think, quite indicative of a lot of what you'll see if you do a review of the literature in this area and the general consensus is, it's not very positive. So, when we, when we look at attempts to measure the impact of the games on health related behaviours, particularly physical activity. We often don't see that the games have much of an effect, either no effect at all, or a very, very small effect, and usually quite proximal to the games. Now what I want to emphasise here is that this research tends to focus on physical activity as a broad set of behaviours and often tries to narrow in very specifically on whether or not people are meeting physical activity guidelines, which you know, if you're an adult, 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity accrued over a week. The question really is why do we think? Why would we think that just simply hosting a mega sport events would lead to increases in physical activity across the board? Now, we can certainly talk about and and Rob highlighted this quite well. We can certainly talk about measurement issues and methodological limitations, spotty data, and all of those things are true. But I think a more fundamental question is, why would we expect people all of a sudden to meet physical activity guidelines just because there's been several weeks of really, really inspiring physical acts of physical performance, elite acts of physical performance on on a field of play. If you go to the next slide.
I want to try to reconcile that what the data are telling us that that on one hand the evidence around the health legacy isn't very compelling against something that we've all experienced relatively recently here in Queensland and Australia more, more broadly, and that's the Matilda effect.

You know we hosted the Women's World Cup and there was tremendous positive attention and media around the impact of those games, and the Matilda effect is something that we actually have measurement points for. So I'd give you a screenshot here of registrations among young women in particular, but also boys as well, registering in their local soccer clubs and we saw a 30% increase in in 2024.
Following that, so now on the one hand you've got data suggesting that, well, maybe the games don't do a very good job at physical health activity and health related legacies. But then we've got things like the Matilda effect, now, is it sustainable? That's a whole other question. But you certainly have what might see on the what might seem on the face of things to be a somewhat contradictory set of findings. If you advance the slide.
But maybe it's not, and here's an example of where I'm going with this.
I think this is a really important paper. I really encourage people to take a look at it. If you haven't seen it before, you might. Earlier I said, you know, why would we expect a mega sporting event like the Olympics and Paralympics to increase physical activity across the board? Well, it's about sports. So I think where we should be looking is, is it having an impact on sport participation? And that's exactly what this study attempted to do with the London 2012 Games. If you advance to the next slide, please.
The survey that they used was something called the Active People Survey. This is the largest survey of sport and active recreation in all of Europe, and it's conducted by Sport England. The APS is collected. It's a longitudinal study, so it's collected quarterly and it surveys individuals in England over the age 16 years of age and over. So right away we can see a limitation, it's not capturing children, but certainly capturing teenage adolescents and through to adulthood.
And very conveniently, the study covers the period from 2005 to 2014. So what these researchers are able to do in a single data set is track sport participation repeatedly on the same individuals over time so that you can see whether there are any changes pre or post Olympics. It uses a stratified random sample. So it's it's based upon good, very solid sampling methodology and large tracks about 165,000 people.
And within that, they look specifically at about 43 Olympic and Paralympic sports. So if we go to the next slide, we'll see what they what they found, which I think is intriguing.

So, overall about 336,000 people, that's their estimate based upon the the results of the survey. So because it's a representative sample, they can extrapolate back and calculate up to population percentages, over 300,000 people increase their participation in the frequency of various Olympic and Paralympic sports, but what's interesting is it wasn't uniform. It wasn't across all the sports that were measured. There were certain sports that seem to capture and ignite people's interests, so combat sports, for example. So that would include judo, martial arts, boxing.
Saw an 8.23 percent 8.23% increase so 21,000 new people joining that sport.
Swimming saw over 120,000 new participants enter at least once a week in that particular sport, the one that was really interesting to me, and it's one that I think we need to pay close attention to. We need to scrutinise but also play close attention to in thinking about our own potential research in this area, was a significant increase in participation among women, people with disabilities, young people and individuals over the age of 65.
Now, wouldn't that be exciting if the Olympics and Paralympics were actually igniting interest in sport participation among the groups that are the least likely to have high rates of sport participation? So, right away we have an intriguing kind of equity effect here and I really want to draw attention to this last one. The legacy effect became stronger in the second year after the games, compared to the immediate post-game period. And I think that's really important. It speaks to a couple of things.
One, the importance of longitudinal measurement, but also a good baseline, remember they had 2005 right through to the games, but also a long enough follow up period so that you can look for these lag effects but also sustainability over time. So is it something that's just a blip or is it something that's actually sustainable, the fact that you don't get an immediate boost or increase in participation for sport post-games is actually kind of common sensical if we think about it.

Most sports operate on a calendar system. So, there's an enrolment period, you register, you sign up for a sport, and it's often not obviously immediately after a major event, it might be a year later, so it's important for us to remember that we want to look not only at the sustainability issue over time, but also what it is that we're measuring. If we're tracking something like sport participation and we have to understand the natural ebb and flow of how the registrations and participation works so that we choose the right windows to do assessment.
The next slide please.
Now, I was asked to talk about measurements, so obviously I think one intriguing idea for us is that we need to do this kind of survey. We need to think about a longitudinal observational survey that starts now, ideally and tracks individuals in the general population. Now, before the games and well beyond the games and to Rob's point, we really don't have that kind of consistent high quality, surveillance data but, but I think we can do better. And that's really what the Olympics are. It is all about and that's what research around the Olympic legacy should all should be all about is how do we learn from what's been done in the past and how do we make it better and make it more robust. So, one of the things I think that we could definitely bring to this is a measurement beyond just participation. Participation is a crude indicator. It's often measured as yes or no, might be frequency element of how often you do it.
But it doesn't give us insight into the experience of participation. So, my research team and I have for a number of years been developing what we call a quality sport experience measure or sport experiences measure for children and youth.

I think this can be adapted to more populations. It doesn't need to be just about children and youth, but what we try to do inside the measure is measure the quality of the experience that you have, that a person has an individual has through their participation. And we look at things like relationships between team players, if there's a team, between athletes, peer-to-peer, peer to coach, athlete to coach and about and in the case of children and youth, parents and parental involvement, and how all of that potentially shapes the experience of sport, good or bad, and gives us a slightly deeper and richer perspective beyond just head counts and who's in programmes and maybe how frequently they might be doing an activity. So I think we can do a lot better on the participation side of things.
We go to the next slide.
I also think we could do a much better job in measuring outcomes of sport participation, so that data was was pretty focused on the participation aspect which is great, it's important, but we know and I've I've chosen one of many examples of meta-analysis of systematic reviews that have shown that sport participation can have a positive effect not only on physical health but also on mental health.
And part of that is through the physical activity pathway, if you use sport as a mechanism to increase your physical activity, then you get the physical activity, health benefits, mental and physical. But I actually think it's much deeper than that. Sport does more than just encourage sweating and elevated heart rate. Sport is social. Sport is about connection to community. Sport is about competition and competition has effects. All of these things that make sport unique, can potentially have unique outcomes on health. So, let's dream big for a moment. Imagine we had a survey of 165,000 Queenslanders or Australians for that matter, and we routinely tracked their participation, the quality of that participation, what they experienced and a wide array of health outcomes that go from mental to physical health outcomes.

And let's really get fancy and imagine that we take a subset of that 165,000 and we give them some wearable tech so that we can track their movements, we can track their heart rate, their accelerations, data that will give us information about what they're doing inside their sport, related events, those sport related participation and some other health related data and imagine we triangulate that all together into a comprehensive study that will allow us to assess the sport participation impact of a mega sporting event, which really is the more direct pathway.

Yes, I hope that it leads to greater physical activity participation, greater social connectivity, all of those other things, but let's not forget that at the at its core, the Olympics and Paralympics are a sporting event.
It should be about inspiring sport participation, something that's very passionate to Queenslanders and to Australians more broadly.

I want to spend the last minute or so if we go to the next slide, just talking about one of the structures that we're very fortunate to have at the University of Queensland and something that we've been activating through partnerships and collaborations over the past six months.
So we are one of only three universities in Australia that have an IOC and in this case IPC sanctioned Research Centres, so it's a recognised centre within the International Olympic Committees, Olympic Study Centre movement and what that does is allow us to, among other things, allow us to use the words Olympic and Paralympic without having to ask permission. So, for those of you who are unaware, the Olympic brand and the rings in particular are very, very guarded marketing tool.

So, there might be people out there who are excited about thinking about opportunities to 2032 and going out and creating a research lab that's all about the Olympics and the Paralympics. Well, you actually can't without the IOC permission part of it, so we have something that's sanctioned and recognised, which is powerful. So what we wanted to do was make it not just about the University of Queensland. We actually went out to all of the affiliate universities, all of our universities in Queensland and offered them an affiliated membership and I'm very grateful that all of them agreed to be part of it. So, you see our affiliate members for the university partnerships there and what that will allow us to do is create greater opportunities for collaboration on research projects, individual members from all of those universities can join Q cops and be part of that team. Anyone can, anyone who's interested can reach out to me, the more the merrier. We really want to grow this as large as we possibly can to to help meet our aspirations.
And we also have important community, national and international partners and Health and Wellbeing Queensland is one of those partners. But so is the Oceanic National Olympic Committee, so is the Paralympics Australia and the Queensland Academy of Sport and these collaborations and partnerships will only grow over time. And the idea there is to make sure that we are connected to industry in the broadest sense of the word and that we can facilitate that kind of research that VALD has been doing around making sure that we create that that tight Nexus between industry, government and and research to really get the most outcomes positive outcomes, positive outcomes that we can.
One last slide, I'll just quickly show you, which is just how the research networks are organised within Q cops and what what what you can see here is we've got a a traditional kind of stream which is around enhancing athletes. So that's sports science, sport, performance, coaching, those kinds of things. But we also have sport and society which is more the sociology of sport, the humanities and political context of sport, a business of sport side of things. So this for our sport management marketing business in general related to sport and then we have that healthy and sustainable communities pillar and that's where in particular we see a great opportunity with our incredible partnership with Health and Wellbeing Queensland to deliver on some of the things that we've been talking about. So go to my last slide and I will simply say come join us, it really is an open invitation and we'd love to have you on this journey with us and thank you for your time.

Julie White  
Thanks so much, John. Much appreciated. And I guess I'm, I'm going to ask the first question that I suspect we others may may want is, do you three presenters mind if we share your slides?
No, fabulous. Great. OK. So the first question I actually have is for Mark from Alia Haddad from Metro South, where does our VALD test in Brisbane can I nominate an elite athlete to be tested? So obviously she knows something. something we don't know.

Mark Opar  
So our equipment is very affordable and as a result, there's actually a lot of them around clinics in Brisbane and broader QLD.
We also have an R&D clinic right next door to our headquarters where we kind of go and test things and experiment with them before you release them. I'm happy to pass my e-mail on and you can come in and we can test on the equipment at VALD and we can put on breakfast, lunch or coffee for you as well. It's a pretty cool office. Anyone who wants to come and visit, it's, we're pretty proud of it.

Julie White  
Yeah, I've got to be honest. I quite like an outing, so I might come along as myself.
Just a quick one out from my perspective, I'd be really grateful each of the speakers could just give, you know, a piece of advice to Queensland health researchers who are thinking about getting involved in Olympic related research. Certainly from your perspective. So I'll ask Rob for the first one.

Robyn Littlewood  
Well, I think the first thing to do is to think about the things that you are doing already. So, for me, it's not about thinking about the way that we can change the future because I know the work that's going on here is pretty amazing anyway. For me, it's about more connecting into the work that's going on now so that we can then connect, collaborate, and then collect the data at the same time. So please you know, reach out, reach out to me or reach out to John, to John or Mark or anybody.
And so we're really, really keen to be a part of this because I'm, I'm really, really keen for you to be a part of this because this is about Queensland showing what Queensland does best. Not because of the games, but the games provides us that ability for us to show it.

Julie White  
Thanks, Robyn. John, if you've got a comment on that one.

John Cairney   
I'll echo what Rob said, but also really as I said in my kind of last moments there, I really encourage people to reach out. I mean I think we've got a wonderful opportunity here to join up researchers who may be traditionally in areas like health research with sport researchers who have that depth and expertise and it's, and again, it's not just at the University of Queensland, the the you know, it's at all the universities have excellent sports science programmes and sport research programmes, among other things.
So I think there's a really great opportunity to use platforms like Queensland Centre for Olympic and Paralympic Studies, Health and Wellbeing Queensland to reach out and say I have an interest, you know, is anyone else in this network interested and we can help play a bit of that map matchmaking role, try to connect people up to the opportunities that are out there. Research is a team sport.

Julie White  
Thank you. And Mark from your perspective.

Mark Opar  
I’ll echo Robyn and John, around the concept of collaboration, I think that's important because it's going to be competitive as well, there’s going to be a lot of great opportunities, but there's going to be a lot of people looking for it. I keep coming back to understanding the real problems that the people who work with the athletes are trying to address because that's where the value in the magic will be as well.

Julie White  
Yeah. No, no, I agree. OK, I've got a really interesting question on the chat and for all three of you potentially you could answer this one, what is the impact of combative sport on mental health when a game is lost?
Anyone game for that one?

Robyn Littlewood  
We'll let John take that one first, I reckon.

John Cairney
Well, I wonder if he means combative or or competitive. Combative is certainly there's a certain that's a very specific context. Look, I think one of the things that sport can teach us which is a really important lesson in life, is how to lose and part of competition obviously is about not only winning but also dealing with frustrations and dealing with loss so you know, I think it's interesting.

The Australian Institute of Sport has their play well strategy, which is really all about, you know, it's so much more than the final outcome of the game. It's all the things that you benefit from participation in sport. Yes, just because it's competitive doesn't mean that there's a negative consequence. Now, the specific issues around combat sport and head injuries and those kinds of things that that's another thing, I'm not promoting a particular sport when I'm presenting that data but and I would also just say that look, we know that that that everything is not rosy in sport. That's one of the reasons why we want to measure experiences because sometimes people have negative experiences inside sport and there's a lot of things that can drive that. I think one of the challenges we have is a legacy outcome frankly, is that we do the best that we possibly can to make sure that every Queenslander who enrols in sport has a quality sport experience. I know that's a lofty goal, but I think it's an important one, particularly for our children and youth, that when they sign up for whatever sport it is that they play, that they have a good experience and that means they grow as a person they develop, but they also get the physical health benefits and the mental health benefits.

Julie White  
Thank you. Rob, did you want a kite? Yeah.

Robyn Littlewood  
Oh, yeah. Just I just wanted to talk about mental health. I think at the moment as well because it's such a good thing to talk about. We did some, we looked at some of the data here from Queensland over the past month, released about a month ago too that said, nine out of 10 young people feel that their health has gone backwards.
And so for me, I I think why is that? Like there's so many parts to that, of course. There’re so many reasons for that, but for me, sport helps when it's good. Sport brings communities together. So, you, you know, you feel like you’re part of something and takes that duplicity as well. Somebody extremely smart said that as well. So, for us we support rugby and women's sport and men's sport, and you know, there's so many, so many sports now, whether they're, you know, whether you can, whether you can play, whether you can't, you're still a part of some something and that's got to be so good for your mental health. And we've got to think about things differently now. So, you know, when I've when I first got the job, I'm in health and so people would say to me, why are you doing sport? Like why you are doing that sport and health.
They go together like sport, health and kids or sport. health and schools, and without them together it's gonna be hard to make to make him, to make improvements. And I feel like this is the way for us. So that's why playing a sport, Gosh that's really important. Whether you hit a ball or you don't.

Julie White  
Yeah. No, it's good point. And actually I have to say I reflect on myself when we had our young son who was a 14 year old fabulous butterflier and every time he didn't make his timing, he'd throw his towel and he'd throw his goggles. And we'd always say to him, Sam, if you can't be a good loser, you're never going to be a good winner.
But you know such the parental such as the parental job of, you know, trying to deal with a 14 year old child. Anyway, I digress. Mark, I've got one for you. Mark. I'm really curious about the integration of genetic data that you mentioned. Could you please tell us a bit more about how genetics can be used?

Mark Opar  
Ok, that was a predominantly example of things that have likely begun with applications with general population and health that sport can probably will likely lead into, if found already it's. So that's a very murky ethical spot as well, so I don't really have much more to comment on that other than to, you know, there are genetic properties that predispose people to elite performance that underpin that.
That some countries, I'm sure, would want to look into that too, to like streamline their talent identification processes and tying that in with measuring physical outputs. But like ultimately, it's like the movie Gatica. It's kind of genetics ceiling from a physiological perspective.

Julie White  
Yeah, actually one of my favourite movies.
So I guess question again to all three of you, is there any funding for Olympic related health research in the ecosystems that you're aware of?
Rob, I might head off with you first.

Robyn Littlewood  
John, I'm gonna throw to you first because I think you and I have had this discussion, and I might take it from there. But I think the work that we are doing with you, so I'm just, I'll just say this, so just in just in terms of health and government at the moment, things are a little bit different. I think at the moment. But the way that we can do it, the way that we can attract the money, I think, is to ensure that we've got a very, very strong research partner and that we can actually prove the value. It's the same as everything else. So that's what governments, I think, don't do as well at times is to actually show the worth. And so that's what I think the point of the point of difference here is that this is exactly the thing that we're absolutely going to do.

John Cairney
I think the only thing I could add is I do think we have a really important task ahead of us to lobby government for the kind of funding. I mean the proposition that I put forward would be very, very expensive and very, very time consuming. And I don't like our chances inside in an NHMRC open competition with a less than 10% success rate.
And I don't think it should be funded there, to be honest. I think if part of you know the part of the reason we're having the Olympics hosting the Olympics and Paralympics is because we want a positive legacy effect and I think it's up to the powers that be inside those organisations to put the money on the table to do the right thing, to unlock the data that we, you know, to produce the data that we need to unlock those results. So I I but I think we do have, as Rob said, I think we do have a really important role to play. Now, there are some small funding sources at Target sport. There are some IOC funding competitions that they're connected to the research centres and we can certainly share that information, but they're nowhere near of the order of magnitude that would be needed to do what I was describing.

Julie White  
Thanks, John. Mark, any comment on that?

Mark Opar  
Look, noting on the VALD horizon currently, beyond my commentary and us supporting kind of independent novel projects. So always happy to hear from you. I would suggest following our social media platforms, we've run the Arie grant twice. I quite like the idea of a Brisbane or Queensland only grant driven towards the Olympics and often a lot of these grant schemes now require industry partnership. We're always open to that conversation and the opportunity to be involved.

Julie White  
Yep, no, that would be great. And as a said, if when you folk are generously sharing your slides, there's obviously the capacity for everyone to be able to get your contact details to reach out to you.

Robyn Littlewood  
Yes, absolutely.

Julie White  
Yeah, that'd be great. Having said that, we're in caretaker at the moment, so we no one can ask us anything.

Robyn Littlewood  
It's a bit hard at the moment. That's all. Yeah, that's all.

Julie White  
Bit harder, bit hard at the moment we were going to give us a couple of weeks and we'll be open for business again, won't we?

Robyn Littlewood  
Yep, yeah.
Yes, open for business.

Julie White  
All right, so look, I am very cognizant of time, but thank you very much indeed. There are some more questions coming in at the moment. So as I said at the top, I will get the team to come back to you very shortly on that. But obviously in conclusion, I want to thank our three keynote speakers today, Mark, Rob, and John for giving so freely of your time and sharing your valuable insights.

So, in 2021, the IOC added one word to the Olympic motto of faster, higher, and stronger. The word they added was together, making the Olympic motto faster, higher, stronger, and together. And I think that it really resonates with all of us as we move forward. So it's very much hope that today we'll gain some insight and some ideas into, and obviously the new contacts for VALD, Health and Wellbeing and UQ Centre for Olympic and Paralympic clearly, by working together across the sector, our researchers, hospitals and universities, research institutes and industry as John quite rightly pointed out, we can help bring something together that might be really robust and important for us for the 2022 Olympics and Paralympics and beyond.
First of all, I would like to again say not only thank you very much for the three of you for giving your time so generously, but I'd also like to thank the tremendous ORI team that essentially, I like them as sort of like ducks on still water, everything sort of just happens magically and underneath the feet are going like crazy and they always do a terrific job. So, thank you very much, indeed. Thank you. Thank you everyone who joined on this Friday afternoon, it is Friday, fantastic. Hopefully everyone's got that Friday feeling.
And I will bid you all a very good afternoon. Thank you everybody very much.

Robyn Littlewood  
Julie, thank you so much.

Mark Opar  
Thank you, Julie.

John Cairney
Thanks everyone.

Video transcript

Julie White  
Alright, thank you everybody.
Thank you.
I think we'll get started.
So on behalf of Queensland Health, I'd like to welcome everyone here to the Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, and also for the people joining us online on this really soggy Friday afternoon.
So thank you for those who are here, for your Herculean efforts of getting through to us in person. I have got incredibly soggy feet. So, if I squish about the place, you'll know why.
So thank you very much indeed for our First Nations Health Traditional Knowledge sharing session.
My name is Julie White. For those who don't know me, I'm the Executive Director of the Office of Research and Innovation at Queensland Health. Firstly and importantly, I would like to respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we gather today, the Turrbal and Yuggera people, I pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.
I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that are present here today and online.
The Office of Research and Innovation, affectionately known as ORI is running these series of events and seminars designed for Queensland health staff primarily, but it's also for different stakeholders, you know, such as the universities, industry and today importantly First Nations organisations.
Thank you very much indeed for all being with us.
ORI is responsible for matching Queensland research capabilities with partners and translating research into improved health outcomes for all of our communities.
Today, I am pleased to open our Knowledge sharing session on First Nations Health. We gather today with a genuine real sense of respect for the knowledge and wisdom of the First Nations communities that have cultivated over thousands of years.
This session provides us with an invaluable opportunity to listen, learn and engage in a meaningful dialogue about the health and wellbeing of First Nations people.
At a recent event, we had probably a couple of months ago, the presenter there highlighted the 31 year age gap in median death between our Brisbane population, compared to population parts of our Far North Queensland population, 82 years compared to 51.
That is a confronting number and it needs to be addressed.
Predominantly, this is associated with chronic diseases, but as one of the main factors in terms of this life gap in expectancy, which is truly significant between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Queenslanders.

Today we will be delighted to hear from distinguished indigenous academic lead and lecturer Uncle Wayne Williams who shares his insights and knowledge grounded both in Indigenous traditions and contemporary research.
I encourage each of you today to listen today this discussion, with an open heart and mind, to actively listen and to reflect on how we can contribute to positive change.
As I said, my special thanks go to Uncle Wayne for making his time not only to be here today, but to prepare this session for us.
Wayne is a proud Wakka Wakka man born in Brisbane, he is currently the Academic Lead for Indigenous health and History Program for rural and Remote Medicine at the University of QLD.
He's a teacher, a mentor, a storyteller, a father and a grandfather.
I will now hand the conversation over to you, Wayne.
Thank you so much.

Wayne Williams

Thank you, Julie.

Thank you for that kind words. As Julie said, you know this is an opportunity not just for myself, but for all of us to share. And I too would like to share my respects to the Traditional Custodians of this land, more in the sense to feel privilege and honour to be able to walk on these lands that have actually allowed us to be here, to share the knowledge and to understand.
We talked about when we were planning the sessions today. We were talking about a lecture. As I said, we I didn't want to give a lecture. I wanted to share information and knowledge is about sharing, not teaching, lecturing.
It's about how do we share this information to those who one want to learn it.
But two on land and a place where it makes sense where it has meaning to, not just your work, not just your role professionally, but to your role as individuals as family members. Cause, regardless of what your title is, we're still human beings.
We have responsibilities outside our work, and they are linked to what we do, and it therefore interprets and therefore influences how we perform and how we act. We're going to be talking about a few different things today and what I would like to really do is give you an opportunity to ask questions and share.
We have a tight timeline, but afterwards we can have questions as well and have a look.
So, for those online, thank you very much for being here as well. And I would also like to acknowledge the various lands that you are on, the various places across this state in this country and understanding that regardless of where you walk, this is still Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land never been ceded, but also we're looking at how do we share that space and how do we not just share the space, but the knowledge and the strength that comes from it.
So, as I said today, we're going to have a bit of a bit of a journey through things.
And I will be the first to admit, I am no expert in anything, but I am willing to share my position, my experiences and hopefully you can do the same, share that with us as a group today.

For those online, we have the ability for you to input through the chat and Carla will monitor that for us. And as I said, at any stage, if you have comment or whatever, please feel free to interject. And what I'm going to try and do without blowing the system up, is share my slide. I’m not renowned for my IT background, but let's see.
Hopefully it's up there, I'm not going to look.
First of all too, I’d like to thank Julie and the team, Tim, Jenny, Carla for inviting me along, but also for sitting with us. Setting circle prior to today to actually plan this and that's part of this knowledge sharing is we sat circle, there was no position of power we sat equally discussing what we want to do, and do how we want to try and do it and the best way to suit the needs of those who are sharing this. We're sharing this knowledge with, so I do thank the whole team for all that great work and that sharing.
Yeah, that's not going to work after all that. Have you just ever had one of those days?
But that's OK.
Positionality.
OK.
So, those who have heard me talk before are going to hear the same thing initially, but this is something that I really want to get across because regardless of what skill or knowledge you're learning as a tool, it would be wrong for me to give you a tool but not give you a way to use that tool, to implement it. I do a lot of work with students, medical students and not only do they need the knowledge, sense, skills. They say to me, Uncle, but how do I make that work in my space?
You've told us stuff, but how do we actually make it work?
What? How do I put it into play?
So what I want to do is introduce you to a theory and a methodology of transmission, transmitting knowledge and creating a space where this knowledge can be safely transmitted and used and supported.
It's what we call a third cultural space, and he's not going to like this. But there's a gentleman in the audience, Doctor John Davis, who has been my mentor from day one, who's really introduced me to this concept and helped me understand it a lot better.
So brother, thank you very much for your wisdom.
So, we currently we're moving away from it, but we've had this existing imbalance of knowledges and I'm going to use the medical education ground area as an example.
We have an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and history around health. We've had knowledges, they’re there. There have been here for 65,000 years plus and are continually developing.
It's a science.
We have our Western medical paradigm and when I look at that is, what does the university or what does the AMC or what does the medical world want our students to know to become doctors?
Our third cultural space, currently, that existing imbalance is not looking at, it's looking at the two different directions.
It's not looking at our common ground. A lot of our theories have been in the past so far apart, not in actuality, but in the perception of those around it. There's been Western medical practitioners that have thought anything traditional or non-western is’ you know taboo, but a lot of our mob to have also realised that a lot of our medicines we have protected, as we do, but have never really found that overlap because at the centre in this situation is the patient and if we don't look at the patient's needs in a holistic view, we are really trying to put our perspective on their health, without looking at their perspective.
So I there's been, what would I call blockers or disablers, things that don't make it or don't allow it to happen?
Some of them are there, tokenistic support, well, we do it because we have to do it.
We got to tick the box.
It's that yearly training we have to do, things like fear of Australia's colonial history, white privilege, lack of trust and institutional racism, all those things, not just one, but each of those things chip away and keep that paradigm from beginning. And if you think about it, go back through your training in any subject.
Some of our beautiful medical students, one's here today, TK thank you for being here brother, would have experienced a lot of changes.
But what we need to do, is we need to make that third cultural space a common ground, a common point of knowledge, understanding, belief and practice.
Yes, we don't want to totally wipe out and engulf our Western knowledges and our Traditional knowledges, but instead of saying why can't we, let's start looking at why do we?
How can we?
And it's about creating a cultural space that promotes common ground.
That promotes a common starting point for this knowledge to be shared.
Yes, we still have the beauty of each of those other paradigms because we can't throw them away because it has meaning, it has position, but instead of saying well, in my world we do it this way, in your world we do it that way. What are we doing in our space, in our world?
What are you doing in our space to allow this process to happen?
So let's look at some of the enablers, and these are things, and I use this example because once I created but I developed a curriculum for our rural remote students, when they go into communities because what it used to be was half hour online module that students would complete, tokenistic support? I didn't know.
And we now have four-2 hour sessions in their placement where we go into detail about the community because what I did to change the narrative and it took a bit of, you know, ask for forgiveness later, I went to our communities that our students go to, that are placed, where they're placed, and I said: Before our students come here, what would you like them to know about your town, about your place?
Now of course, we have our AMC requirements for the curriculum.You know, we have to have all that stuff there and that's just what it is.
But what I did was I engaged with communities, not, and the process of engagement isn't just: ‘Hi, I’m Wayne, tell me all about it’. It took months, it took years to actually develop the relationships, some I already had, but it's about allowing the communities to have a say in who was coming into their town, who was coming into their space, who was being engaged in their cultural practices with the aim of these medical students, when they become doctors, will have a better understanding of not just rural, remote health, but our cultures, our people.
Now you know there's always a big sell on rural remote doctors, we try and get more out rural, that's OK, but I'd rather have a doctor that wants to be there, that has a history of understanding the place they're in.
What it did, it provided our students with that process of well, if I, ok I might be going to Cherbourg now, but I'm going to go to a different town, I might just do the same thing, so they asked those questions.
So, we want to build that space up so we have a common ground and an example is we have a lot of overseas students, great strength.
They are trying to learn the Australian culture, the university culture, medical culture.

And we say, you need to learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.
Wow, it's really tough.
So I say to them, when you're working with a patient, when you're talking with a patient, engaging with a patient, look for the common ground. Traditional medicine is when we can talk a little bit about it later, e don't teach them traditional medicine, but we look them to advocate that the health of a patient isn't just about Western medicine and that the patient is the expert on that patient's health. The medical practitioner is the person who supports them, works with them in that space, to find out the best treatment or medication or program that helps their health.
That can't happen unless there's a mutual understanding or a common point to start. So in terms of that, what I want you to think about throughout the rest of the presentation and even further, is how do I find a place where we can make things happen rather than why we can't do it. Too often we look at why we can't do it.
Why it shouldn't happen?
Why it can't happen?
Why it hasn't happened?
We can use that, but we need to use that to motivate well, ok, let's change our mindset.
I understand we have parameters to work within, but too often if we look for the answer in the deficit, it's not there, it's in the strength.
So this is basically moving towards that strengths-based approach which we're going to talk a little bit more in depth about later.
So this is my methodology on looking at issues, looking at problems, looking at strengths and how we move forward.
Start from that common ground. And build that space.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, now this is just the Queensland map, but you might see, and you probably know all this, we're not all the same.
We're not all, and a lot of our overseas students, I've been told that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people this, that all of them do that, that all of them speak this way, all of them have the same ceremony.
We don't. Our diversity is our strength.
Our diversity is our passion is our power, but our connection to Country and connection to land is where we get that from.
We derive that presence and that strength from belonging to Country.
The concept, Traditional Owners, I want to challenge that, Traditional Custodians. The land owns us, we don't own the land, it's not ours, it's ours to support, it's ours to look after because it looks after us. When our land is sick, we are sick and when we are healthy, our land is healthy.
So, the concept of our different nations, our different language groups, shows the diversity exists there. And yes, there are some common overlaps in language and custom practice, but there is diversity as well and that needs to be respected.

If you're doing research in a particular area, with a particular group, you need to consult, you need to, at least I say to my students, when you go on your placement, find out who the Traditional Custodians are.
Find out the language they spoke there.
Find out a bit about the history of the place.
Who's the movers and shakers in town?
You know, find that knowledge out what you would do if you were moving to any place, a little bit of background search.
And of course, being the centre of the universe there, where this fellow here comes from Waka Waka mob. And in the South Burnett area, centre of the Earth, as we all know. Big smile up the back there from brother.
Now, throughout our history or the history that shared through colonisation, I'm not going to dwell on this because it's looking at a negative, but I just want to set a scene.
We talk about the things that have happened in the past and obviously there's a lot of traumatic things that have happened, you know, stolen generations, these legislations, this isn't something I cooked up, this is real legal legislations that happened, that governed our people through those times. I was alive.
Maybe not, well, you know, from referendum, but a lot of those laws were still in vogue when I was a kid and my mother was taken away as a consequence of those legislations.
So that legislate all those different legislations, people look at me and go: Really? I didn't know that those things happened, they happened.
But the effect, the ongoing effect of that has had a traumatic experience, that intergenerational trauma that still exists today.
As I said, I want to paint the scene or set the scene and this is not an excuse, this is a documented reason why a lot of things have been and have ended up the way they are, but we can't stay there.
We talked about that intergenerational trauma. You know, it's defined and I think it's important here experiencing and remembering the events in the mind of an individual or the life of a community.
Individual and the community.
Not just the individual, not just the family, but the whole community, because that community suffers. As a community, we are one. Individual as part of that community.
Past is very much with us today in the continuing devastation in the lives of our people.
This is an extract from the bringing them home report, and it can't be addressed until the whole community, and that's just…
What I want to also stress is people think of a community as a town. This is a community.
Your departments are a community.
Your family is a community.
Yes, we have our towns and places, but again, a common ground is we have that communal knowledge, that communal understanding, that communal strengths and even sometimes communal weaknesses that we have.
How do we address those?
How do we support those?
How do we actually grow from that?
But the Intergenerational Trauma does exist. I was sitting in the coffee shop this morning, big ears, Dory as usual, and I heard some people talking about how ‘these Indigenous kids have been running around doing this and that’ and I sit there just listening and like I said, ‘yeah, but, you know, these kids have been through a lot to get to where they're at’. And I think they said: ‘but so is everyone’.
And I said, you're right, we've all had issues regardless of your skin colour and your cultural background, but it's how we address those issues.
It's how we deal with those issues.
It's what support is there to address those needs.
And it's really important to understand that. People need, want or deserve help or support at different stages in their journey.
It's the same as learning. You have to be ready for that knowledge to be able to accept it and understand it.
So what I want to do is just hit you with this statement and I want you to have a think about it.
“We can't live in the past, but the past lives in us”.
Straight forward statement.
Anybody keen to give us the thought what they feel about that statement or what it means to them, what it could mean?
We can't live in the past, but the past lives in us.
Yeah.

Audience Member
Yeah, I have that benefit. Thank you.
The point I came to was that I have that benefit from my family earning from that land. Having continued family connection as opposed to the people in the First Nations, people who are taken away from that land and no longer have that benefit.
So that's how the past lives in me today.

Wayne Williams
Thank you for sharing that, and it's really interesting because this statement will mean different things to different people.
But I think what it means to me is, we have to acknowledge and respect the past because that's what shaped where we are now and where we're going, but we can't stay there.
We need to take that as a strength and that common ground to find that and how do we move forward while still respecting what has happened before us, and that even gets to a point of acknowledging those who have come before us, those powerful people, especially in Indigenous Movement, land rights movement.
Freedom of speech, freedom of activity.
Our cultural leaders, what they've been through and what they've gone through and what they've had to do to get us to where we are today is like walking on the shoulders of giants and I've had the fortune to work with brother and learn, people I work with through the university.
They did the hard yards, it's about how do we take that forward.
And this was said by Charles Perkins when he was around doing a lot of the stuff on the freedom rights.
But it was more important the fact that we look at it is, ask yourself that question.
How do we take what we've learned and move forward?
We don't learn from the past.
We're going to repeat it.
Yes, Carla.

Carla Del Carpio

Uncle Wayne, we have some comments from the people online, they're saying: ‘To me it feels we can't make the past direct our lives, but we mustn't forget about where we come from and what happened to us’
Then another person says: ‘The ongoing effects of the generations before us, the good and the bad, we have been learning lessons and passing them on through our genetics, we respect and move forward. Then another person says: ‘That’s how it felt to me, too’.
Yeah. Thank you.

Wayne Williams

Thank you for those online for sharing. As I said, it will all mean different things to different people, but I think the core of it, is we realise we need to move forward.
I was very fortunate when Prime Minister Rudd made his Apology.
I was fortunate enough to be in Toowoomba where I live with our Elders.
We, we gathered at the local church and they put up on the screen and, I don't know 25, 30 of our Elders from all over the place were there, and when their Apology was made, as a group, they were in tears.
And what it did was and, you know, we had a yarn up afterwards, just sort of debrief and nearly to a person they said, you know, they said.
I said, why did you?
Why were the tears?
And I said someone's finally believed us.
Someone's finally heard us and acknowledged what we'd been through.
Let's move forward…their words.

To be actually acknowledged that what you have been through and what you had experienced, you know it exists, but to have that apology, to actually acknowledge it is the ability to move forward.
And I think that was that was one of the real, that was a big moment for me because I was basically sitting there and just watching our Elders.
I wasn't watching Mr. Rudd, and the relief of our old ones, feeling that someone had heard them acknowledge them, allow them to take that next step.
I think that's really important.
Now, about a couple of years ago there was a really big push from every government agency, federal and state, when there were whole lot of issues being arisen in the workplace and racism around the world was, let's do cultural safety training and it will fix everything.
And I thought, let's do cultural safety training and the organisation thought once we do that, we've equipped our staff to be able to handle these situations.

Cultural Safety isn't the answer.
It's a component to the answer. It's part of it.
But I ask you a few questions about culture safety.
Who defines it?
Defines what cultural safety is, and I'm not going to give you an answer.
I'm going to ask you, is it the person delivering?
Is it the group receiving?
Is it the HR department?
Is it a consultancy firm?

Who defines what cultural safety is?
Who is it for?
Is it for the liability organisation?
Is it for the individual?
Is it for the group?
Is it for the Community?

Should be for everyone, really.
What is it?
What’s Cultural safety? Is it a shield you can carry around you?
Is it a belief system?
Is it something you can touch or is it a way?
Is it an understanding?
Is it a knowledge?
Is it a skill?
Or is it just the way things should be?
And it's really important because as I said, I work with a lot of medical students and when they become doctors, I say them cultural safety is not just for your patient, it's for you as well.
We talk about creating a safe space.
And the medical history of medical training has been, as a doctor, you will create a safe space for your patient. That's great.
You need to create a safe space that you can all be in because a lot of our overseas doctors, but even our Australian bred doctors and born doctors, we all deserve Cultural Safety and a space where our culture is respected and understood, and valued.
That sounds, they're lovely words, but how do you make it happen?
How do you engage with someone in a culturally safe way?
We talk about safe space. Safe space is great.
Who is it safe for?
How do we make it that way? I think, you know, this is one I orking for organisations, how do we measure how culturally safe our staff are?
Or how do we measure how culturally safe this program is?
Is there a scale? Do we look at the reducing in number of complaints?
Why do you need to measure it in the sense of a sliding scale?
Because that looks to me to be a very deficit-based concept very similar to another big model we use called ‘Closing the Gap’ that looks at the deficit all the time.
So what are we going to look at, I suppose, is it achievable?
Look, I like your ideas, Wayne. But in in, in our workplace or in our community when this organisation because we have such a diverse range of people, it's very difficult to be culturally safe. No, it's not.
If we use cultural space or third cultural space model, I worked in a school in Toowoomba that has eighty different nationalities of students at the school. 80. Because there's a school where there's a heavy migrant/immigrant/Indigenous population.
And the schools, as you now, schools want to have an identity. They want to be known as something they want to stand for something and the school, we got together was teachers and we brainstormed, and I said, how can we create an identity when we have so many different cultures and beliefs and understandings?
And I'm sitting there like I had my two cents worth. But I'm sitting back and brainstorming, and I said well, how about we look at this?
Let's use those eighty different nationalities as our strength.
As our starting point, let's celebrate the fact that we do have that many different cultures here. And how do we then include that?
So what we did was we had days where students would welcome people, other people in their language, days where they would wear national dress days, where they would bring food.
We engaged with the families, so we became known as a school that engaged and supported and encouraged the 80 different nationalities that were there.
Rather than trying to define it, we embraced the strength and looked at what strength those nationalities brought us.
So again, it's changing that mindset from, oh, how do we bring it all? It’s already there.
How do we move forward with that? So that's just a simple example.
So if we look at Cultural Safety and again, these are through APHRA, pretty straightforward. But I think it's really important to understand that knowledge is skills, attitudes, practising behaviours.
It's not just what you say or what you do or who you are.
It's the environment you're in, the service you provide, the follow up you provide.
But, because a lot of our people were either weren't allowed or felt very intimidated to go into hospitals or doctors up until not that long ago.
Just our mob actually stepping foot into a health practitioner's practice, to hospital, to a doctor is a brave, tough thing to do.
And a lot of my students say, yeah, but that person comes in and sees me when it's really late in their health journey.
And sometimes it's too late to, you know, to help them. So well, the fact that they're there is a starting point. But that's stuff like intergenerational trauma and all those other things, some of the reasons why our mob hasn't been to the doctor early.
You can't undo the past, but you need to understand it that so we can move forward.
So what I want you to look at is we use 5 principles and I'm not going to dig overly deeply because at the end of the slides there's additional slides that actually go into depth with this. But I just want to touch on it for you and the first thing is Reflective Practice, and reflective practice really means having a look inside and saying am I, you know, put that mirror up and have a look at yourself.
Very difficult to do, very difficult to do because we like to think that we know what we're doing and how we're doing it. But having a look in and in the sense of critical reflection, too often people think I must always look at the negative I should have, done this better, I could have done this better.
That's part of it. Celebrate what you do well. Hey, that worke.

As a teacher, some students are difficult to work with.
Uni students or primary school students doesn't matter, but all of a sudden that light bulb turns on for them.
Yeah, that worked.
So when you're looking at reflection, looking at how did I go there? What did I do?
What could I have done better?
What did I do well? But a reflection is only as good as what you do with it?
And I was doing my teaching degree and I said when you go out and do your practice, you write your lesson plans, and you write your reflection on every session. You end up with thousands of them. Most people said, yeah, and they put it away. Unless you do something with it, it's a waste of time.
So, the reflective process looking deep within is only as good as good as what you do with that.
The concept then is minimising power differentials, especially in the health space.
You are the expert.
You're the doctor. You're the manager.
You're the professional. People come to you for your knowledge and advice.
But as I said in the health space, the actual expert on the individual’s health is them.
You are as a health practitioner or researcher.
You are the interpreter of this situation and how you best use your services and your resources to help them.
Because you can't walk in and say uhm, it looks like he's got that, looks like she's got that.
No, it's diagnosis, but also too.
And this is something that we talk to our medical students about when they write their notes.
About the patient, those notes, one, not only are a legal document, but two, they can heavily influence who sees that person next.
So upon reflection, the stuff they write. Oh, it's a frequent flyer.
Looks like they're just here for doctor shopping. Patient was very, you know, rude, whatever. It's about how we, the language we use around it to describe what's happening.
So how do we change that power?
Education? Health? Law has its own language of power.
Took me 3 years at Uni to work out what pedagogy meant, let alone spell it.
But the idea is that knowledge and that language can intimidate your patient.
Can intimidate your clients, can intimidate the people you work for and with.
It's not about dumbing it down, it's about speaking in a way and translating that information in a way that makes sense to them.
That means something to them, because really it's got to make sense to them.
You might walk out and go. Yep, I did exactly what I told them, but they're going.
And who's ever been to a meeting or an interview or something and you walk out and go, I have no idea of what they were just talking about, but I have to nod because I don't want to look silly.
Yeah, I'm there every day.
I have children, grandchildren. The engagement and discourse have a listen.
Be patient.

How you going?
What's problem?
What's the issue?
How you feeling?
How are things going?
How do you think we should deal with it?
What's worked for you?
What hasn't worked for you?
I've noticed that you haven't been taking your prescription.
You haven't been filling it out.
You haven't been taking your medication, or you haven't turned up for appointments rather than say, well, we're going to have to put you on the no return list or you know why the medicine you gave me is making me crook. Doesn't work. I had it before. What’s an alternative?
Let's look at something else rather. Now I need you to take that if there's an alternative, so, it's about listening to the person and understanding their needs.
But yes, still using your position or your role to interpret that and to be able to translate that into the language you want.
Decolonising. Recognise that intergenerational trauma, the impact of colonisation still exists.
I'm not asking you to look for it or to change the world, but what I'm asking you to do is have a listen. Have a look, have an experience where you realise that that could be a factor that can be addressed or can be talked about or can be shared. One of the most dangerous places in a workplace is the lunchroom.
You hear the stories about the patient with the new staff member or the new student at the school.
Have you got? Is he going to have a great day? Those little kids?
Not here.
He's terrible, you know, blah, blah blah.
And that's a new teacher.
I'm sitting there listening and going. Oh, no. Who was this kid?
I haven't gotten in my class so straight away listening and the discourse you need to be very careful.
You might feel that.
You might want to say it, but you need to be very selective because most teachers might be saying that about you.
The teacher's not here today. I'm glad that staff member's not here today.
We'd like to think that doesn't happen, but it does.
But it's about how we use our language in our discourse to actually address our professional practice in whatever role you play, research, teaching, health practitioner being aware of the impact you have and your discourse, your language has not just on how you're perceived, but how that person reacts with you. And if you're looking at research, you know yourselves that language of research, it can be very, very daunting.
I'm still getting over some of the words, you know, that's why I have my Brother interpreter up there.
What does that mean JD?
Tell me what that means. This is good.
But you gradually pick it up.
And I suppose this is pretty a combination of all of it means you don't diminish, demean, or disempower others. Don't do say or try and act anyway that's going to upset or demean people. Yes, we're not going to try and snow job people. We're not going to try and, you know, put sugarcoat on top, but we need to relay messages, we need to relay information in a way that makes sense to the person, get your message across, but doesn't make them feel as though they are disempowered.
That isn’t cultural safety
Cultural safety looks a lot more like this.
It's not one or the other. It's how by looking at these principles that we create a space that is culturally safe. You are not ever going to get the perfect situation.
I don't care how good you are at this stuff because we have humans involved.
We have ourselves involved.
We have our history, our past.
Remember, we can't live in the past. The past lives in us.

So we want to create this culturally safe space but we need to have the knowledge and skills using third cultural spaces, what do I need more of less of at this point in time?
How do we make it work?
How do we set a place that conversations can be open and safe?
And be, I was at a meeting the other day, yesterday afternoon online and before someone made a comment said: ‘Ok, so we're in a safe space, right? In other words, I'm gonna say something that's controversial. I don't want to offend anybody.’

That's ok. That might be a way he said safe space. But he felt he needed to know that before he could say it, and it wasn't anything too bad. But the idea was he felt he had to reinforce that it was safe.
So a lot of the training that I do and that we do, is about creating a safe space to allow the conversations to happen.
It's really tough when you're sitting in a room sitting in a room with all these big professors and no disrespect to really all these really intelligent people that are way more intelligent than me and I sit there and I go: ‘That's like a tennis match. I see so much knowledge bouncing around the room, and I walk out and go. I got the first bit, but I didn't get the rest’.
You know what I do now?
I used to just hide.
Now I'm going to say when you're talking about something, can you explain it to me?
You know, be brave enough to ask that extra question because it might.
It helps you make sense of what's going on around you. Because if you walk out and go, and that's another hour I've lost in my life. It's going to be very difficult, so it's about how do I create a space where not only am I safe, but I'm supporting those around me, whether it be research project, a classroom meeting, an office, meeting, staff meeting today.
It's how do we do that?
Again, cultural safety doesn't go: Ok, you finished the session. You are now all culturally safe.
You can wear your cultural safety badge and be good.
Cultural safety is part of a lifelong journey and I look at it this way, today and in other sessions that I've done with people, I give them information, put knowledge hopefully into their head, they hear things.
And an example from my medical students is, I show them a video that is fairly confronting. They see that, they hear that.
And then, as we move forward, some of that knowledge, some of that information, some of that impact has an effect on their emotions, on their heart. They go, wow, I never knew that.
Well, that's really disturbing. It hits them.
Not all of it, but different people are hit by different things. But as I move through that, they say, well, what am I going to do about it?
What can I do about it?
How am I going to address that?
How can I do something about that that's happening now that can be a major thing or a small thing, but to that person it's had an impact knowing about it.
They want to do something about it.
But as they move forward, it's about building up that cultural and you can see the terms awareness, sensitivity, competence, proficiency.
Call it what you wish.
But it's a developing thing because a lot of stuff we hear, we get upset about, but we don't do anything about it, because we can't. A lot of stuff we hear doesn't upset us.
But the stuff that we hear that has an impact, an emotional, cultural impact that we feel we need to do something about, that's when your practice comes in.
That's when it affects your practice, your communication, your research ethics.

One of the changing, hopefully things is getting research ethics approved for Indigenous-based or theme program because we're not speaking the same language yet.
To do this, you can't just do it like that. To be able to do that, you need to be in a space of cultural having, cultural humility.
That is wow! I didn't know that.
Wow. Teach me more.
Wow, first time I've heard.

Not saying no, no, no, no, no, no.
That didn't happen.
That's not true.
I wasn't taught that at school, my mom said this happened, my teacher said that happened.
Be in a space of cultural humility to say, tell me a bit more.
Let's look a bit deeper.
Let's talk to people.
Let's engage with those who can help me a little bit more on it.
Well, I didn't realise that.
What am I going to do to be able to help change that?
So cultural safety is not just about knowing things. It's about how we interact with that and how we progress that and start building that safe space. If each of us build safe space, we can encompass that with everyone, you'll know of school teachers that you had as teachers that you were comfortable in their class, you will know these certain meetings you like going to or don't like going to because of just the feel you can't put a word on it, but you know it's the right place to be and you feel I can express that. And it's really important.
So that cultural humility, that space to be in, is really important.
Now we're running out of time and there's a lot more, but we might be able to come back at another stage.
I just want you to in terms of the research side and this is something from Doctor Karen Martin, we hear a lot about knowing, being and doing.
So our knowing in the Western where epistemology and it's about, you know, knowing the knowledge of knowing, how we know things.
The ontology of being. It privileges the Indigenous worldviews and Indigenous understanding of who we are and what we are as people and individuals, and our place in the world.
So when you're looking at research with our Mob, you know as you'd be aware, we are probably the most researched subject in this country, if not the planet. But too often the research is on us rather than with us, and it is transactional and not relational.
What I mean by there is you give us this, we will give you that, it's building a relationship to allow that transmission of knowledge.
It's finding that third cultural space that allows that knowledge transfer to happen.
Because, hard to believe we learn as much from non-Indigenous people as you do from us because we want to share knowledge, but in that right space.
So if you look at that, we're already, we already have Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing that have been labelled with Western research terminology for so long.
It's already there. We've been doing it.
One of the questions I've got as a school teacher was how do we teach Indigenous science?
There's no such thing as Indigenous science.
Land management.
Cultural heritage.
Agriculture, hydroculture, survival. Indigenous mathematics.
All those things are there, but because of our ways, we tend to block that out because we perceive that mathematics must be done this way, that science must be done that way.
So looking at that, we then look at our philosophy of the, of what is being and again, let's have a look at our physical world.
It's that base who we are, the land. We come from creation, our mother. We are the land. We don't own the land. The land owns us.
It's our food, our culture, our spirit and identity.
Our land is our base, is our core.
A sacred world. It's not entirely that metaphysical, touchable, but it encompasses foundations in health and healing, spiritual, wellbeing, lore kinship. All those systems exist to create, and I don't like the triangle as much, because what it does is it said these are separate things.
They're overlaid, they are interactive, they're interdependent on each other.
And that human world, our knowledges, our approaches to people, family.
Rules of behaviour. All those things are in our philosophy of learning, not just learning, but life.
But if you move the word Indigenous aside, does that work across all the cultures, across different parts of the world?
So I'm not showing you anything new, but what we have been asked so often as Indigenous people to explain our existence, to explain our beliefs.
We live our beliefs we live our existence.
But for the sake of this presentation, wanted to put it in a way that you can see, but the interrelationship there, is cyclic, it's circular. That flow and one you that's there.

And when you're looking at research and conducting research with us, it's about how do I encompass this knowledge in our research project, in our dealings, in our support, in our engagement with communities.
Because it's very important to understand that too often we are researched.
Researchers come into our place, take information, and it goes away.
We never hear about it again. Research is like a boomerang. It's got to come back.
It's got to come back and it's got to go and it's got to have meaning.
It's like students when they get asked to do brother, how many surveys did you do in your medical training?
A lot, but did you ever get any feedback from those surveys on what it was trying to do, or on all of those surveys it was like, do it?
And you then lose faith in it or try to dodge them. But it's about what meaningful, useful information is gathered.
But what is it used for?
How is it used and how do you engage with our people on that information?
Because our roles in our communities give us different responsibilities.
You need to know that and understand to access the right information at the right time.
Now, I'm not gonna try and push it too further because we're gonna have some questions and at the moment, but there is some more stuff.

And again, we obviously we don't have time today, but I would like to, if we get an opportunity to continue this information sharing with you. But I just want to finish off on something that is really important to me, and I think it's important is that Indigenous data sovereignty.
Who owns the knowledge?
Who owns the data?
Who owns the information?
What is done with it?
How it is shared? How it is used?
It's not just that I'm gonna take it away.
It's what are we going to do with it?
How are we gonna engage with the community so that data is not just used, but we need to recognise that Indigenous data sovereignty involves decision making on the part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people you're working with.
It looks at, you construct data frameworks that does not restrict our goals and ambitions, that supports us. If you look at any research project that's ever been done.
And as I said earlier that ethics approval phase is very difficult at the moment because it's hard to move past those walls of ethics that are always there. I'm not saying they shouldn't exist, but what I am saying is the need to be glass walls that we can look through from different directions and approach our knowledge and research ethics. We had a situation last one, one of our students do, one of the students do a rural health project.
Before we started our program, we would get one or two. Our up to like 90% of our rural health projects are based around Indigenous data and programs and projects that our students want to enact in the communities.
As the only Indigenous academic on the team, the interesting part was they were never flagged through me to have a look at.
So they were marked by non-Indigenous markers, who really, with their best intent, had no understanding of that community impact of them.
Do you know who sent them to me?
The students.
Because, they had learned that was protocol and rather than just fill it out and submit it, they would say Uncle, can you have a look at this?
Look at a little bit extra time, but it was worth it.
But what it did, what our teachings did was create in the students methodology that they knew someone had to look at it.
Again, I'll finish off there and I suppose it's time for questions. If anybody's got any questions or comments, please feel free to do so.
Carla has her roving mic. If you have no questions, she will probably sing a few songs for us.

Carla Del Carpio

I can ask the questions as well if you enter them in the chat, please.

Audience Member
The question is about the step between cultural proficiency and cultural humility, and do you have any techniques to help people take that step, because it's scary.

Wayne Williams

Yeah, and that's a good question.
I suppose, let's look at it this way.
It's not as much a Step 2. It's that journey.
And it is a constantly changing, but some of the things I suppose it's being honest to yourself, and this comes back to that reflection, being able to let yourself know that you don't know everything.
But also in  working with someone and discussing it with them.
I like to use it, I've heard so many comments or conversations that are perceived as not real safe.
And rather than say to that person you're a racist or you're such…’when you just said that, why did you say it? what made you say that? why did you think that?’
And it's about putting it back on them because what people that upset others want to do is hook you in, is to take your power away.
So I try and turn that back.
That might be what you believe, but tell me, tell me.
Give me a bit more information about it.
What do you think about it?
How did you come to that opinion?
Where did you learn that from?
I didn't know that.
Tell me a bit more.
So it's not about, because what they want you to do is…(to get upset).
So address the issue, not the person, and that really helps because you don't personalise it, because straight away their shield, their attack comes up.
Hey bro, that might be what you believe, but let's talk about it. Where did you come up with that? Oh, ok. Have you thought of this? Have you thought of that?
It's about addressing it now. I say this because some of our students have had really negative experiences on placement sites with some of their preceptors and they found it very difficult to say something because they're the ones that sign off on their reports, but we provide assistance for students to come to us and there's a few places we've dropped as preceptors because it's not safe for us to send our students in. What I do is I can't deliver my sessions in front of them, and they ah, you know, so again, there's always ways around things.
I hope that helps.

Carla Del Carpio

We have some comments from the online attendees. One says… this is a brilliant model and explanation.
Michelle says ‘I have enjoyed and learned from decision and would love to continue the learning in another session’ followed by many likes, and Louisa says ‘it's all about continued learning’.

Wayne Williams

And that's, that's humility, Cultural humility.
We don't know everything. I don't know everything. I'm learning from your stories picking up.
I learn from my one other thing I ask my students at the end of our blocks is, tell me what I can do better.
Tell me what you want in these sessions.
What you want more of or less of or how you want to deliver?
And that's the first thing I go to, because if I stick with this, nothing changes.

Carla Del Carpio

We have some more comments:
‘Thanks for the session. I really like the explanation of the third cultural space that includes and values different world views and paradigms’.
‘Completely agree. Making sure that research findings go back to the communities involved in the research is crucial’.
Then, King says: ‘great presentation. Thank you. Like you mentioned earlier, we, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, we don't know everything because we're a very diverse culture’.
Then, Sarah says:
‘Copied from Q and A, I work in clinical trials from pharmaceutical company, I know a lot of organisations and ACCHOS are doing great work in familiarising patients, families and communities with clinical trials.
I'm curious though, whether there is also any degree of mistrust towards the pharma industry in general, which we need to work on?’

Wayne Williams

Yeah, I wouldn't use the term mistrust, but I'm very aware because the stereotypical picture that are painted of pharmaceutical companies in the media, we always need someone to blame about something.
But I think a lot of pharmaceutical companies, and again, every medication, every medicine that is administered by a doctor has come from nature.
It's been synthesized differently in laboratories lately. But every medication comes and I'm on the board of Carbal Medical Services in Toowoomba, we have medical trials there.

And before the companies come out and talk with our mob, we sit down and talk to them and explain what it's about the benefits for our mob and if we don't see there's a benefit or the community doesn't see there's a benefit. We say thank you, but no, thank you.
So it's about setting scene and not just doing the trial, but community, consulting with community in a real way, if they actually want it.
Yeah, AMS might want it.
Does the community, cause remember the AMS is a reflection of the community, and the community is a reflection of the AMS.
We serve a community, so I've had people say no. It doesn't happen that people say yes, it makes it happen.

Carla Del Carpio

This will be the last question…

Audience Member

It's more some of a comment.
I'm coming from a similar background that the person that have sent that message about the clinical trials, I work for a company at CRO that watches after this relationship between the industry and community health, not only in Indigenous populations in Australia, but also overseas. I'm coming myself from Peru. So I'm coming also from another country that has a big impact on public health and Indigenous populations and I don't have an answer for what has been asked online.
But what I can say is that the indifference of the industry to return to the populations where they got from could be a critical factor for engaging in the future.
So companies discuss about, it's just impossible to meet the targets. We just can't do it.
We can't go forward.
They are losing the chance, in the eyes of the industry, I would say and making a very thin line because.
I don't know much about the culture in here, but I got 20 years’ experience on the other side and this is the answer from the community.
It's like, how is this going really to help?
Well, we're going to do this and this and this benefit and it's going to help your children and the vaccination and the future and the generations really?
But I can't afford the vaccine and the government is not going to provide for us.
So who's going to see the benefit of this?
I'm going to put 3, 4, 5, 10 hours a week, for a couple of coins, to be part of the trial.
But I'm not going to be able to see the benefit.
So I don't want to engage anymore. And then by commenting on their launches as you just explained, they discourage families to be part of it and the opportunity gets missed. So where?
Another point of looking into the triangle you have shown is including as well how the outside scenarios lose the chance to do something for them. Because in this barrier of communication we are not able to translate.
That benefit that we are really looking after as researchers being the doctor, is not just, you know, being part of a golf community, it has more to see with what real benefit we can offer for other people, that that will be my, my return. But my question to you after what I said is, have you faced during all these years of your experience, something similar from industry.
What the industry have shown you during all these years?

Wayne Williams

Industry has showed me, and I thank you, thank you for your comment. Industry showed me that it is the majority wants to change, the majority of it needs to change.
The authentic ones actually engage and not just like the fly in fly out.
They engage further past.
It's about, as I said, really, it's not transactional. Things need to be relational, not just research. But our engagement with communities.
It needs to be relationship built and based because it is reciprocal.
Yes, it's about supporting those there now, but the future.
And we've heard that all before, we've heard, that said.
But it's the doing knowing being and it's the doing how?
How is it gonna happen?
And it's about, you know, really, it's about proving that and it's very difficult because we live in the moment and we're not, we might not be here in the five or ten years of the next generation, so therefore the connection with the communities needs to be ongoing.
It needs to be, needs to evolve with the members of the community and the only way you do that is to become part of the community and have a say or have a presence there. Not just that not just going to put up a plaque because you know.
That's, you know, we're going to be here if you need us, this is this, and being a conduit for other things, to support the community is really important and that's that community value because then you become part of the community.
You become accepted and listened to, and heard and asked.
So that's a long term commitment and that's unfortunately what a lot of companies and agencies and programs don't do, a lot of programs we've worked on. We've got great results. Funding's been good as soon as we've achieved results, it goes to funding.
There goes the program.
So does achieving positive results mean the end of a program?
I hope not.
But it's about that continuance.
So yeah, it's an ongoing connection.

Julie White

Look, thank you so much.
I mean I, from my perspective, I have learned a great deal.
It was terrific, and it was enlightening.
So I'm really grateful for your generosity on that. You know, certainly there is no doubt, you know, Queensland Health is making some progress.
There is no doubt whatsoever all, and you know the, I mean, if we look at the recent documentation that is out around Q32 in the First Nations strategy. Clearly, things are moving and we are moving in the right direction, no doubt whatsoever, but clearly there is work to be done.
And it's work that is important and it should be done and it must be done, so obviously from our perspective, I wouldn't want to stand in the way of snacks and lunch.
But thank you so much indeed, Wayne.
Really, really valuable. And you know, as I said, I've certainly learned something and I suspect others have as well.
I would also like to thank the team Jenny and Carla in particular, always the ORI team doing a spectacular effort.
And I would imagine as usual, there is fabulous catering outside.
But once again, thank you very much indeed.
Hopefully you found this is useful and valuable as I have and thank you very much indeed Wayne, for your generosity. Thank you.

Wayne Williams

Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Anyway, yeah, if you want to grab some catering and have a yarn in there, please feel free to do so.

Video transcript

Prof Julie White

On behalf of Queensland Health, I would like to welcome  everybody here in Brisbane at Customs House and also online. I believe we  actually have really quite a substantial online presence as well. So, welcome  to the Fireside chat on Inventorship and Intellectual Property protection with  our very special guest, Professor Robert French.

Prof Julie White

The event is brought to you by the National Foundation for  Medical Research and Innovation, known as NFMRI, and being hosted by us at  Queensland Health. For those who don't know me, I suspect most of you do, my  name is Julie White. I'm the Executive Director at the Office of Research  Innovation in Queensland Health, and I would obviously like to start by  respectfully acknowledging the traditional owners, the Turrbal and Yuggera  people on the land in which this event is taking place today.

Prof Julie White

I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and  emerging. So, the Office of Research and Innovation, ORI, as we are  affectionately known, is running these series of seminars and they’re designed  primarily for Queensland Health research is to really strengthen awareness of  the key issues that are facing researchers and also to increase innovation  across the state's health and medical ecosystem.

Prof Julie White

ORI is responsible for matching Queensland health research  capabilities in hospitals, universities, research institutes and businesses  with partners translating that research into improved health outcomes for  patients. Because that's exactly the business we are in. We are delivering  health outcomes to our patients. So, the thing that ORI is doing differently  this time around is we are embarking on protecting our own intellectual  property.

Prof Julie White

We are looking to actually unlock the value and the assets  that we have developed over many years. So, it's really important that our  researchers actually feel as if they are empowered to be entrepreneurs and to  be innovative. And to that end, we are actively supporting, we've got a team  around us in ORI to help protect the intellectual property that is being  developed.

Prof Julie White

And we're also embarking on incentivising and rewarding our  clinician researchers to indeed be innovative. Because if we are not going to  innovate, we will not be sustainable. We have to innovate in order to be able  to keep the health service, the machinery moving. So, before I just quickly  introduce our distinguished guests, I just think we should also make sure that  we know that we actually have been really rather successful.

Prof Julie White

In 1970, Professor John Pearn was awarded the first-ever  Florey Fellowship at the Royal Society in the UK for research into experimental  pathology. In 1972, Professor John Kerr, head of UQ's Department of Pathology,  published a landmark discovery on apoptosis. And UQ’s Professor Frazer and Dr  Jian Zhou, who obviously filed the very famous patent that became known as  Gardasil.

Prof Julie White

And further, in 1996, Brisbane born, and UK educated Professor  Peter Doherty obviously won that Nobel Prize for medicine in his discoveries  for cells protecting viruses. So, all that means is actually Queensland is home  to some really world class leading health and medical research and technologies  and discoveries. We need to ensure that Queensland Health is protecting the  assets we put our hard work into.

Prof Julie White

So, tonight's seminar, a Fireside chat on Inventorship and  IP will explore the concepts around discovery and innovation. Who's an  inventor? What happens if you get things wrong? What happens if you can do to  support intellectual property? As I said, I think we've got probably 100 people  in the room, even more online. So, thank you so much for attending.

Prof Julie White

My particular thanks go to Professor Robert French for  making the time to come here tonight to share your valuable insights on  intellectual property. Professor French is the Chancellor of the University of  Western Australia and former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. I  will now hand over to Noel Chambers, CEO of National Foundation for Medical  Research and Innovation, to begin the discussion with Professor French.

Prof Julie White

Thank you. Thanks, everybody.

Dr Noel Chambers

Thanks, Julie. And thanks, Robert, for, doing this again  with me. We did it for two months ago in Perth. In a law firm over there. So,  we've had a rehearsal. So hopefully, here we go. I guess one of the questions  people ask is, well, why is anyone interested in patents?

Dr Noel Chambers

I mean, we're a Foundation. We're a Medical Research Foundation.  For us, it's about delivering benefits to the community. That's our end goal.  And we look at the structure or the pathways to get there. So, for us what we  support is pre-clinical research. But the way it's delivered to the community  for what we support is drugs, devices, diagnostics, vaccines, biologicals and  tools, regulated products.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, if we’re gonna get our research to the community through  products, we need to have investors, big pharma, biotech and others investing  coming to support that research so we can navigate the pathway to get through  the regulated products and get it to the people in need. Now, intellectual  property, of course, is a key component of getting things all the way through  and attracting what we call next-step patents.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, intellectual property is critical to us, and we consider  the studies and how IP is being managed even in our expressions of interest  stage. So, if IP is not being managed well, your project applications will fail  immediately. We fail things on the weakest link. We compound that by having a  little process. So, it's not only what we spend, but it's how it is spent.

Dr Noel Chambers

With a rough rule to say you can't spend the money in your  own lab and you can't spend in your own university, your institution. So, we're  researchers are currently trying to say when they apply for grants, what can I  do? What can I do? What can I do? For us that doesn't work. It's what is needed  and who should do it.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, we consider regulatory systems not accreditation, data  utility, GMP and all that along with IP. So, IP is critical for anyone to be  successful with us. And IP is critical really to take our research for the type  of research we fund to get it to the community in need. That's what we're  about. And I'd like to thank Robert for spending his time to help us get some  of these messages across, because we see particular challenges in understanding  IP at the university sector and whether you're an inventor or not, particularly  when you're having to collaborate and partner with external partners.

Dr Noel Chambers

And if you've got the Inventorship wrong, it causes all  sorts of challenges and problems down the track. But why don’t I hand it over  to Robert then, and he can probably start off by chatting a bit more about Intellectual  Property more generally.

Prof Robert French

Thank you very much, Noel, it's very nice to be here back in  Queensland. And I gather that there are quite a few regional Queenslanders  participating online.

When I was present at the National Native Title Tribunal  back in the 1990s, I spent a good deal of time in that part of the world, right  up to and including the Torres Strait. And there's a there are a lot of  vibrant, vibrant communities there. So, we're talking about Intellectual Property,  and that's a generic term. And the question is what does it cover?

Prof Robert French

And I think it's important for people to understand without  getting into too much technicality. Just what's the broad legal framework which  identifies and defines what we call Intellectual Property? And for our  purposes, it's really a product of laws of the Commonwealth Parliament. Okay, so  you have, patents for inventions and that's they’re created by, a Patents Act  of 1990.

Prof Robert French

You have a copyright and there's a Copyright Act and then  other Commonwealth law. So, the author of an original work, and they have all  sorts of things which are original works, has the legal right called copyright.  In that work you have trademarks which can be registered. And again, if you  develop a trademark and it's not already in existence, then you can have the  legal rights to that trademark.

Prof Robert French

And similarly with designs, and then, there are circuit  layouts and plant variety rights and a whole array of different things. But  they're all the products of Commonwealth laws. And when we talk about patents  and copyrights and so forth, it falls into that class of rights which we call  personal property rights, that say that the owner has them as personal  property, which is just a way of distinguishing from real property, which is  and things like land and so forth.

Prof Robert French

That has an implication for, what can be, who can, how they  those personal property rights can be affected by somebody other than the  person who owns them. You can, of course, sell a personal property, right? You  can assign it; you can give somebody a share in it. And the patent, say, is  capable of encompassing all of that kind of arrangement.

Prof Robert French

You can give somebody a share in the profits of its use. And  this arises perhaps in the context of, universities. Importantly, another  university or any other state-based institution can buy a rule or regulation of  the university, take away that personal property. Right. Because it's a matter  of Commonwealth law. A state law can, adversely impact in or operate  inconsistently with the common law.

Prof Robert French

But of course, if you're working in a university, you may  have a provision in your contract of employment which says, what you develop is  something that we share or we own or, we have a right to commercialise. So,  there's a whole variety of legal arrangements that may be made through  contracts of employment or otherwise. They might also be made in collaboration.

Prof Robert French

You're an inventor. You want to exploit the invention. You  want to get it out there into the marketplace. And you enter into a  collaboration with somebody. It might be an institution like a university. It  might be a state government institution. It might be something else. It might  be a private investor. And you may then have arrangements about how the  ownership of your property will be held and how the benefits derived from its  exploitation, will be shared.

Prof Robert French

So, we're talking about rights created by Commonwealth law.  And I've spoken generally in terms of patents, copyright, trademarks, and  designs. Now, what I come to focus on, what is the area of interest this  evening and that is that is patents, of course. And they are patents for  inventions. So, the first question that one asks is what's an invention?

Prof Robert French

Now in Australia, we have a very old-fashioned definition of  invention in our Patents Act. It goes back to a 17th century statute in the  United Kingdom. It's a manner of new manufacture. Now, if you look at what does  that mean? You can't parse the words and come up with a crystal-clear meaning,  as you would normally expect from a statute.

Prof Robert French

So, what it means is what's been developed by its  explanation over many years by the courts, in Australia, almost like a, what I  call a common law process where the judges deciding from case to case what a  manner of new manufacture means. A core concept of invention and manner of new  manufacturers. It has to be something which is made by human action.

Prof Robert French

May be a device. It may be a process of some sort. It may be  a method of doing something, but it has to be something which is made. That was  important in a case we decided in the High Court when I was Chief Justice  D'Arcy and Myriad Genetics. And the question in that case was whether you could  claim as an invention an isolated nucleic acid segment which contained, markers  for susceptibility to breast cancer.

Prof Robert French

So, basically, Myriad Genetics had assembled a database from  various patients which showed what were the markers, the mutations in a DNA  sequence, which would indicate that, there was a susceptibility for, to breast  cancer. And then they claimed in a patent, not just the mode of diagnosis, the  method of diagnosis, but the actual shape, any segment of a DNA molecule which  contained those polymorphisms from anybody.

Prof Robert French

And we said in the High Court, you can't patent that. That's  not an invention because it's not something made. It's just information which  has been derived from a particular patient that was always there. So, an  invention has to be something, something made. So, something more than  discovery is what you're saying. A discovery is not an invention on its own.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, something more than discovery is what you're saying. A  discovery is not an invention on its own.

Prof Robert French

No, a discovery of existing information is not. That's  right. Having an idea is not an invention. So an idea is not an invention. And  doing what I might call the grunt work in a laboratory, being told to, you  know, create some sort of, mechanism, of itself doesn't constitute  participation in the inventive process.

Prof Robert French

If you're a technician, for example, who's doing what  somebody else has asked you to do, who's actually got the concept and trying to  develop it, we need to have, such and such a, an instrument in order to do  something.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, we get applications in where someone's discovered a  potential drug target, but then they're going to outsource it to another group  who's going to do the medicinal chemistry and the manufacturing, the working  out of what are you going to use it for?

Dr Noel Chambers

But then the IP is being handed away is a rejection

Prof Robert French

Yeah well, a reduction of the practice itself isn't the  invention. But just to step back a moment before we get to that, we've talked  about what an invention is. Of course, it's got to be novel. Hasn't has it's  not an invention if somebody’s already thought of it and published their  thoughts.

Prof Robert French

And it's not going to be obvious. The whole point of  invention is it's not obvious. And this, we often get into arguments in the Court  about whether a thing is obvious or not, whether there's a, the inventive leap  is involved. And how do we test whether something's obvious, whether you look  at what's been published before and you ask, is in the state of knowledge that  we had before, would this have been obvious to a skilled but unimaginative  person working in the field?

Prof Robert French

So, the judge has to imagine a skilled but unimaginative  person with a PhD who would say, this is obvious. Okay, it's what I call one of  them the great menagerie of imaginary friends that judges call upon, like the  reasonable person and the skill. But an imaginative worker, who looks at what's  already been published says, oh, yeah, that's that, that's plain as a black  stuff.

Prof Robert French

So then, you have to be, novel has not been published, and  it has to be, not, has to be involved and inventive step. So, you then ask,  well, who's the inventor? Now this is where it can get complicated. Who's the  inventor? Well, before I ask who is the inventor, there is one other thing I  should point I should make.

Prof Robert French

There are different kinds of inventive process. Some of them  are the wonderful moment where you find that, rotating a magnet inside a coil  of wires generates an electric current. Okay. And so that's electricity and,  turbines and things. So that's, a discrete development. On the other hand, you  may have something which involves a trial-and-error process.

Prof Robert French

When I was a practitioner back in Perth, I remember one of  the things we had to deal with was I was representing somebody who had developed  a hospital bed. This was before you could just press a button, and they talked  any way you wanted to involve cranks and levers and I learned all about things  like the Trendelenburg position, and the reverse Trendelenburg position.

Prof Robert French

These are the way hospital beds tilt. But the interesting  thing was that the pattern was based upon an extensive and extended trial and  error process to get things right. So, it's not always a light bulb moment. And  sometimes it can be that you finally work out. This is the way it works. And  that is something which has not been thought of before, is not novel, but did  involve a lot of little steps to get there.

Prof Robert French

Another one which was quite, and has many implications for  the sort of thing you are interested in, was a case, I sat on as a federal  court judge, a University of Western Australia and Gray, and that case involved  the development of treatments for liver cancer. Right. And the essential idea  of the treatment was that you would get little micro spheres made of some  ceramic, rather, and inject them, into the hepatic artery, you know, such a way  that they would deliver a therapy to a tumour in the liver.

Prof Robert French

Now, there were three kinds of microspheres. There was one  that would be coated with a chemotherapeutic agent. The idea was to treat it so  a direct to the end of the hepatic artery. So, it would release the  chemotherapeutic agent in the vicinity of the tumour. Another one was,  radioactive Yttrium 30 or 31, which had a short half-life.

Prof Robert French

And you inject that and so you get highly localised  radiotherapy. And the third one, which is my favourite, was a magnetic  microsphere. And you would send that into the hepatic artery to the liver. And  then you would stick the patient in a rotating magnetic field which would,  which would be a bit scary for the patient. But the idea was that would have  the effect of heating up the little microspheres in the tumour.

Prof Robert French

And if you get the tumour off three degrees above,  surrounding tissue, you can kill off. And even if it's less than that. But this  was a 20-year process, and it was a lot of it was trial and error, getting the  size of the microspheres and their mode of distribution just right. So, they  got to where they were meant to go and didn't go off and wreak havoc in other  parts of the body.

Prof Robert French

And it was a very complicated and iterative process and  involved, a history of differing collaborations, grants for fans here and there  and all over the place. And when I was writing the judgment, I was sitting in a  room with, I think probably 100 volumes of just funding applications. I asked  NHMRC grants and sponsorship, which actually gave me a measure of the stage of  the idea at various points in the development and the point at which one might  say that what you call the inventive concept had crystallized.

Prof Robert French

And it's when the inventive concept is crystallized that an  invention has come into existence. And then the question also, who was  responsible for the inventive concept? And that's the question you ask when you  ask who is the inventor? And it might not be just one person.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, there's a bit of a different culture possibly here, traditionally  and I've even seen it recently with, with some people in academia, you do your  research and you're putting up a publication and lots of names can go on the  publication, and it doesn't necessarily have the same impact as when you're  putting in at least two inventors on a patent.

Prof Robert French

Yeah.

Dr Noel Chambers

If you include all those names, you might be doing yourself,  creating a problem.

Prof Robert French

Well, one of the names might be somebody who just,  supervised the team without an input.

Dr Noel Chambers

Head of the Department.

Prof Robert French

And this is not unusual. But the act itself doesn't tell us  what an inventor is, but the accepted definition is seems to be the person or  one of the persons.

Prof Robert French

Any person is an inventor. Is the person or one of the persons  who materially contributed to the inventive concept as defined in the  specification and the some of the claims. Now I've used that term specification  and claims. So, when you launch a patent application, you set out in a patent  the specification which describes, if you like the invention in a very, general  terms.

Prof Robert French

And then there are specific claims which have to be fairly  based on that specification. I'm claiming, an invention, for this and that. And  the other thing, there might be 3 or 4 different claims associated with a  particular specification, I think in the, myriad genetics thing, for example,  you had a claim for the isolated nucleic acid, which we struck out, but they  might have been I can't remember precisely, but it might have been then a claim  for a diagnostic method by reference to the identification of those  polymorphisms and so forth in the DNA.

Prof Robert French

So, you have specific claims, and the invention resides in  the claims, which have to be fairly based on the specification.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, keeping a register then of who contributed to the  different claims early on would obviously help.

Prof Robert French

Well, one of the one of the arguments in the case I had in  the Gray case was there was somebody who said I had my orange, and I should  have been recognized as a contributor to the inventive concept.

Prof Robert French

I was not satisfied that that was the case. That person  wasn't entitled. But it can be a very messy lineage.

Dr Noel Chambers

If you've left someone off or you've put someone on, it's both good and bad for  you.

Prof Robert French

Yeah. And that's particularly the case where you have  collaborations. Of course, these days we are seeing more and more  multidisciplinary things happening, especially in the medical field.

Prof Robert French

I was in London a couple of weeks ago at a dinner, organised  by friends of UWA and UK and Europe. And the guest speaker was a very  impressive, research ophthalmologist, Professor Lyndon da Cruz. And essentially  what he's been doing is the growing of using stem cells to grow retinal cells  for, transplant into the eyes of patients who suffer macular degeneration,  which is a, you know, have been pretty hard to treat, but they're talking about  very, very fine, small distances less than a millimetre.

Prof Robert French

So, they had to use robotic engineering, and they had to use  AI to, get a database, of the blood vessel patterns in retinas. And so, it had  to be a collaboration between the medics from one university and the engineers  from another who developed this, robotic system driven by AI, who are delighted  to find. Now, the question is, how would you identify the inventions which  emerge out of that?

Prof Robert French

And how would you identify who the inventors are? I suspect  there's a host of patents involved, but you need some pretty good advice about,  about where they reside.

Dr Noel Chambers

Maybe I can throw a couple of old ones to you, Robert. I  mean, you've heard them before. So, I've gone to a restaurant with a friend,  and we've sat down, and we've actually come up with a plan, and we've drawn the  whole thing up on the back of a napkin.

Dr Noel Chambers

All right. We've done this great design of this restaurant,  and I've gone into the lab the next day to a student and say, can you just do  this exact experiment as written, as done, follow these plans. He's the  student, then an inventor. Are they doing reduction of practice? And when did  the invention occur?

Prof Robert French

Oh, now you're asking for legal advice, which I don’t.

Dr Noel Chambers

Hypothetical.

Prof Robert French

Yeah. Oh, I can't imagine anything drawn on the back of an  envelope after a few drinks that would. However, let's imagine, an ideal case  in which you've got a, a robust, serviette. And you actually, you actually draw  a device on it, let's say a device for sticking on your nose and hearing your  apnoea for the first time.

Prof Robert French

Okay. You say somebody made one of those. Yeah. Okay. You've  got all the specifications for the device.

Dr Noel Chambers

And dated and timed on the napkin.

Prof Robert French

Well, whatever. Yeah. And you just say that somebody else,  manufacture that for me. Well, the person who manufactures what you have  designed is not thereby the inventor.

Dr Noel Chambers

Yeah. So that's very relevant.

Dr Noel Chambers

If you take it into a laboratory situation at a university  where you might have supervisors designing experiments and putting things in  place, and then who contributes? And particularly if it's a student, because  students in university contracts often own their own IP, but they really  reduction of practice in some cases. Or are they inventors? And I think it's a  bit more of a complex thing on a case-by-case basis.

Prof Robert French

I think that's right. You can't, draw bright lines here because  the student might go away and say, yeah, that's great, but I've just thought of  a better way of doing it, or a modification of this design, which makes it work  even better. And then you have somebody, perhaps you have somebody who's made  what we call a material contribution to the invention.

Dr Noel Chambers

Yes.

Prof Robert French

As distinct from somebody who's just put it together. Yeah.  On your instruction.

Dr Noel Chambers

And I love to throw around a little other hypotheticals  here. I mean, I think most of us in the room are old enough to, If I mentioned  how, you know, computers now and all that sort of stuff, you know,

Prof Robert French

Yes, they haven't seen 2000.

Dr Noel Chambers

They haven't seen to this, yet. But now we've got patents  around. Alexa, Siri and Google. I mean, are they novel? How does that work?

Prof Robert French

I have no idea.

Dr Noel Chambers

You have no idea, that’s a good answer.

Prof Robert French

The interesting thing that I didn't notice that there was a  question whether, an AI which has a neural learning network and produces  something, can be an inventor and a single judge of the federal court back in  2021. I think it was Justice Beech, said yes.

Prof Robert French

And the Commissioner of Patents then appealed against that  decision to the full Court of the Federal Court, which sat five, because it was  an important question. And they decided, no, that the concept of inventor, as  set out in the Patents Act and the relevant regulations, is a natural person.  Now, that does not mean that you couldn't change the law to say that, you  couldn't confer legal personality on an AI and then say ownership this.

Prof Robert French

But then the question is, who gets the benefit of it?  Because the AI isn’t going around selling its interest, presumably would be the  owner of the AI system. And I think, in fact, the doctor who had or the  inventor who had developed this AI system and then tried to argue that the AI  was the inventor, but because he owned the AI, he took the benefit of the  invention.

Prof Robert French

So that was the way. But it depended, the root of his  argument was that the AI was the inventor. And the court said no. The High  Court refused special leave to appeal, but it didn't finally knock out the  possibility because it said the facts weren't. The facts weren't right. The  situation wasn't such that you could answer all the relevant questions.

Dr Noel Chambers

Okay, maybe I'll break some. So, reach out to something  which we didn't discuss too much in Perth. Swiss style claims. So, this refers  to repurposing a drug, that might be on the market for a particular condition.  And you're trying to, you know, file patents to use it for a different  condition. So, the manufacturing part of the patents are often owned by  somebody else early on.

Dr Noel Chambers

But now you're trying to develop a new IP position in the way  to regulatory pathways. But do you want?

Prof Robert French

Yes, I think we, said something about that when I was on the  High Court in a case called Apotex, which was about, using, a drug for a new  purpose, which was the treatment of, psoriasis.

Prof Robert French

And I think we said that was patentable. And we also said in  that decision that a method of medical treatment was patentable, which had not  been which had been, in some contention before that time. Now some countries  expressly exclude methods of medical treatment as patentable. But that's,  that's but that doesn't mean that the way that a doctor does something to a  particular patient is thereby patentable or is an invention.

Prof Robert French

So, there's a fine distinction to be made. And I think some  more working out to be done there, but certainly a new, application of an  existing, pharmaceutical product may be patentable.

Dr Noel Chambers

Okay. Well, maybe what we'll do is soon, we got some people  in the room is, see if we can get them involved somehow. Does anybody have any  questions?

Dr Noel Chambers

Obviously not for me, but for Robert. Relating to Inventorship  in particular? I mean, inventorship is, obviously important to us as a  foundation to delivering benefits to the community. But you're in the room, so  it's obviously important to you. Here we go down the front. So, I don't know  your name, but please, I think if in this way for the mikes, we’re streaming  it, they won't hear it in Cairns.

Melissa Hagan

Oh. Hello, everyone. I'm Melissa Hagan, and I'm the director  of the Queensland Clinical Trials Coordination Unit within ORI. And I've  wondered always about if you are classified as an inventor, and it's a personal  right given to you and you haven't worked out, it might be in collaboration. If  you die, does that right, then automatically go to your estate or how do you  work through all that?

Melissa Hagan

You know because I see that as a really complicated thing.  And often things, you know, do take some time to commercialise.

Prof Robert French

Well, I think specifically the Patents Act in section 15  provides for ownership of the patent to be, in the, a patent can be granted to  the person who invented or a person to whom they've been assigned the rights  or, the legal representative of a deceased person who might be the inventor or  a person.

Prof Robert French

So, it's like a piece of personal property. It was kind of  mentioned before if you don't mind. Always the tricky question of, a person who  invents something when they're an employee of somebody, which obviously is  important in relation to universities. It's important in relation to, say,  clinical researchers within the Department of Health and so forth.

Prof Robert French

So ordinarily, if an ordinary employer, employee, in a  business, develops something in the course of the business, which has, there's  an implied term that the property belongs to the business as a matter of  implied contract and instead of the employment contract. So, it's not  inconsistent with the Commonwealth law. It's just saying your contractual  relationship is such that if you do this on company time, it belongs to the  company.

Prof Robert French

And of course, ordinarily that's particularly so if you have  a duty to invent. In other words, if you were employed to try and develop  something and you do and, and so it's written into the contract or it's  necessarily implied in the contract, but different with universities. And this rose  again, in the Gray case, there was nothing expressed in the contract of  employment.

Prof Robert French

The question was is there an implied term. And what I held,  and it was upheld on appeal was that the relationship between academics and  universities is different from a regular employer/employee relationship. And a  long story short, there is no implied term. In other words, if the university  wants to have the intellectual property, it has to write that into the into the  contract.

Prof Robert French

Now, it's like most sensible universities, I would think if  they don't do that, they would at least create a framework which encourages,  the academic to take advantage of the universities’ facilities for commercialisation  and so forth. And I think a lot of universities now have policies in that  regard. And even if you have an iron clad, contractual assignment to a  university or any other employee, you might still have an argument about who  was the inventor, and at what stage an inventive concept crystallized.

Prof Robert French

If you've got an invention which takes many years, like the Gray  thing, 20 years, where the academic or the employee, if it's an even if you not  an academic, has worked for different institutions, then at what point did the  inventive concept come down? Who is he working, he or she working for at that  time? So, you can often get a messy lineage so you're better off to be  cooperative rather than adversarial.

Dr Noel Chambers

It's also easier to do a deal with one party than others.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, try to get the parties sorted out before you get the  next partner involved. That's my advice. Yeah. The other thing on that front,  by the way, just quickly from personal experience, is if the inventors don't  have some skin in the game, some benefit, the tech transfer is actually so much  harder and a lot of investors will walk away because there's nothing in it for  the original inventors, because you want them involved.

Dr Noel Chambers

It's easier. Yeah. We're going to other questions for  Robert. We've been very quiet, but it's unusual. Yes, please.

Dr Noel Chambers

There's a microphone here. Yeah. Jenny's got one for you.

Isabella Allen

Thanks. I'm Isabella. I'm from Matter Research. And my  question is, so if you're a student and you've come up with the idea, you've  invented, you've made the innovation, but you're going for a grant. And as part  of that, the university says that you assign away your intellectual property to  them.

Isabella Allen

Does that mean that they've then become the inventor, or do  you, retain your, idea, your intellectual property still?

Prof Robert French

Yeah. If you go into a collaboration, or, you're the  recipient of a grant, and it's a condition of the grant that you assign the  intellectual, that you assign any intellectual property that you might develop.

Prof Robert French

And that's like any contractual assignment of the property. Usually,  it's not as clear cut as that. The sensible university will want to incentivise,  the person involved to, you know, develop an invention and to have as Noel just  said some skin in the game, so that there'd be a sharing arrangement. We've  just finalised, I think in UWA a revised IP policy and one of the issues was  this issue about, students who get involved in the development of, of  inventions.

Dr Noel Chambers

Keeping an early log I think coming back is my experience  helps answer some of those questions for those potential future investors. So,  if you keep an idea of what the claims might be and you say who contributed  when and you have dates and people on time, then it's much easier to hold those  arguments.

Dr Noel Chambers

Yeah. Because you've got to go back to the filing dates of  the patent in terms of priority, particularly if you're competing against US  patents. So, there's a whole heap of challenges there of knowing when the  invention occurred and having your logbooks properly kept. If you're not  keeping proper logbooks down the track, it even gets harder. Maybe you can  comment to this.

Prof Robert French

Absolutely. Yeah. In the Gray case again it's the question  was who did what when. And that depends very much upon laboratory notes as well  as upon what was disclosed in successive grant applications because each grant  application had to set out where they got to at the point, that their  application was being made and why they needed something more.

Prof Robert French

So, yeah. So, the wavefront of the development was reflected  in the, the paper records.

Dr Noel Chambers

From my end, I mean, I've never actually also taken a  technology forward where all the data's come out of a single institution. Some  of the data has come from one institution to another to another, and all of it  piles up to actually give you trust in the data.

Dr Noel Chambers

If you read the aims and papers of any reproducible results.  So, you put all that together. If you don't have the logbooks, if you don't  have that data managed, it just chases away those next two partners. They  don't. They walk away very quickly. Anyway, we got another question over here,  Norbert.

Norbert Kienzle

Hello. Thank you for these great insights.

Norbert Kienzle

My name is Norbert Kienzle, I’m from IMB, UQ. I’m an  inventor on a patent or a couple of them. What are my rights or gravitas to  actually that these patents, continue to be prosecuted? Obviously, it's quite  expensive, to run this year over year. And, what if it's decided we stopped  that?

Prof Robert French

So, you you've got a patent now?

Norbert Kienzle

I'm the co-inventor. Yeah.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, I think the university in your case probably owns your patents,  Norbert?

Norbert Kienzle

Alright, so, it's a private company.

Dr Noel Chambers

It's a private company. Okay.

Prof Robert French

Okay. And so, somebody you're somebody who's acquired your  patents, but they're not using it?

Norbert Kienzle

No, I mean, I don't know. I mean, obviously it takes money  to keep that patent alive for the 20 years. What if the company decides that  they don't want to, continue that?

Prof Robert French

Well, if you've assigned the patent to them, then that might  be the end of it. Unfortunately.

Prof Robert French

And of course, we have had the phenomenon. I think, maybe in  the United States, somebody brings out a new piece of tech that threatens, an  established technology. And so, the, the company that has a, a vested interest  in maintaining the established technology acquires the patent and freezes it  off. Now, I know there are there are some there's some competition law  implications around all that.

Prof Robert French

But I'm not clear that you can, force them to, unless you  write it into your contract. Of course, you could write it in the contract that  if you haven't done something within, you know, six months or haven't spent X  number of dollars, the patent reverts to me. The way to protect yourself is to  protect yourself upfront.

Dr Noel Chambers

Put it in the original agreements with reversion clauses is  what I try to do. And I'm on the other side of the fence, remember? So, if we  don't progress with it, it will revert back. But IP is the asset and often  licensing isn't enough for some companies. They actually want to have it  assigned. So, thinking upfront, it's like putting in a termination clause or  anything in any contract.

Dr Noel Chambers

Think of what could go wrong. You're the lawyer, I am the  business guy.

Dr Noel Chambers

Look at the other end.

Natasha Korica

Yeah. Sorry. Natasha Korica from the ARM hub. I wanted to go  into a little more detail about recordkeeping. So, when someone's come to you  with a new invention and they want to prove that they are the inventor of this  particular patent, you've touched a little bit about logbooks, but can you go  into more detail about what really adequate recordkeeping actually looks like  and what for example, logbook entry might look like to really prove that  someone's been genuinely involved.

Natasha Korica

So, what would be a substantial record that you could look  at and go, that person was certainly involved in something like this. And what  does that?

Dr Noel Chambers

Well, for my experience, small being, an investor type  person, I'd probably have a different vision to what would legally stand up in  court. So, I might let Robert answer that question in the first place.

Prof Robert French

Well, I doubt there's a single formula, to answer that, that  that question. Let's take the case of the microspheres that I was talking  about, and memory dims a bit because that was back in 2000 and 2006 or 2007.  But, one would see records of, experiments that were carried out using  different size.

Prof Robert French

So, we tried, you know, 35, microns or whatever. And this  happened, then we tried another size and that happened, and then we tried  another size, and that went right. So that you can track over a period of time  what's been done and by whom. And now there are many different ways in which  that might be recorded.

Prof Robert French

It might be recorded, you know, electronically. It might be  recorded in handwritten lab books. I imagine these days will all be on an iPad.  So the and the extent of the, the, it always be a matter of, I suppose if it  becomes to a contest for a court to decide whether that is sufficient to,  demonstrate, the point at which the inventive concept crystallizes and who is  the who is the person who's made or who are the people who have made a material  contribution?

Prof Robert French

So, it's a record of what's been done and by whom. And then  you can imagine that broad formula covers a whole range of possible ways of,  of, of recording, which will depend upon the nature. And of course, once you  get into a, a complex interdisciplinary exercise like the one I mentioned in  London, then the record keeping becomes quite a, quite a massive and  complicated task, but that it's very important that the thought out carefully,  it's part of a collaborative process.

Prof Robert French

If you want to protect the IP.

Dr Noel Chambers

Electronic notebook keeping obviously makes a bit easier.  But I mean, you need to keep I mean, if you I'm a medicinal chemist, was, a  long time ago. So, keeping NMR and mass spect data, making sure it's signed,  make sure it's dated, making sure it's kept in line.

Dr Noel Chambers

And I think the thing that Robert also pointed out that  people forget, it's also the experiments that fail, all right, which are also  important in helping you make a decision. Right. It's not just the ones that  work.

Jonas Hjertquist

Hello, my name is Jonas from Bar Weiss. Just got a quick  question. Thank you, first of all, for being here today. I've got a quick  question in regard to and this is at the risk of sounding not very parochial, are  there major differences between countries in the way that patent laws applied?

Prof Robert French

Yeah, I mean, the central concepts are pretty much the same.

Prof Robert French

And you've got a really an international network of, you  know, registration, patent protection. Anybody with a significant patent will  seek protection all around the world. But there are, some differences in  important areas. For example, some countries will exclude, as I mentioned  earlier, methods of medical treatment from the, from patentability. And I  suspect we may see some differential developments in the area of, AI and the  involvement of AI and the development of inventions.

Prof Robert French

So, and I think, there have been some differences of view  around the world in relation to, patentability of genetic sequences. So that  would be manufactured genetic sequences, I guess. So, there are there are  differences. I mean, there's a general comment and there are different  formulae. We've got we hang on to this old formula from the, the UK of hundreds  of years ago, the manner of new manufacture and the reason we hang on to it, I  suspect, is because there's so much law on it now.

Prof Robert French

It's like, an old machine in which you've got such heavy  sunk costs. It'll cost you an arm and a leg to actually crank up to something  new. But a lot of other countries use more, understandable language when they  describe what an invention is. But eventually the concepts are pretty much the  same. You can get some differences.

Prof Robert French

Murray Genetics case that I mentioned, we said that both, an  isolated DNA, nucleic acid segment obtained naturally from a patient, and, say  DNA, which is a sort of manufactured thing. But with this, with the particular  patient's information that both of those, neither of those just patentable  because they both depended upon information for the inventive claim rather than  something made.

Prof Robert French

Now, the US Supreme Court went, said that the natural DNA  was not patentable, but that the cDNA was and that was a different they went  off a different base between things which are unnatural and things which were  invented and so forth, rather than doing the information analysis that we did. So,  you can get differences around the world, but there's a lot of commonalities.

Aaron Davies

Hi. Aaron Davies from the Office of Research and Innovation.  From a novice inventor perspective, what are some common things that can trip  people up, that can go wrong, that can either cause issue a lot of issues down  the track legally or, make something unpatentable, apart from what's already  been discussed prior.

Prof Robert French

What things can affect you? You're right. Yeah. Okay. Well,  I guess, this is prior disclosure. If you've effectively published before, you  have applied for your patent. Then the prior publication becomes part of the  prior art, which makes, means that a claimed invention is not novel. Having  regard to the prior art, this generates a very interesting tension between open  access science, and the protection affected by IP.

Prof Robert French

And it may be that there's a policy question there as to how  much, we should allow, open access without prejudicing IP rights. But in any  event, that's one area. And then there's, I think there's a specific reference  to secret use as another vitiate, factor in relation to, in relation to  inventions.

Prof Robert French

So, they're the principal thing is if, if what we're talking  about is an invention in the within and otherwise within the meaning of within  the meaning of the act. Things can go wrong. Of course, if, you don't realize  what your rights are and that you've sort of signed them away without  understanding what you've signed away.

Prof Robert French

And there are hazards for inventors who try to get out the  line with some private investor or financier. And I've seen, a fair bit of that  in the years past in practice, that everything's rosy at first, then the  finances imperatives take over, the inventor feels marginalized, and they get  into a horrible argument, and then everybody ends up in court and nobody makes  money.

Prof Robert French

Sometimes. The best advice for an inventor, who, a person  who's in the line of research they want to see that they're in the marketplace  is simply to sell the invention, or whether it's, the price I sell. I mean that  in a generic sense. Sell it. Whether it's to a private investor or to the  university or to some other institution, and get on, take a slice of the  action, if that can be arranged, and then get on with making the next  invention.

Prof Robert French

Some people are much better at inventing than they are at  business. And I think the case I do remember was in my early years in practice  and one of my partners was acting for and was a fellow who had fallen out with  his financier, that it was a was an invention which was a bit questionable. It  was an invention for, scooping up a chicken.

Prof Robert French

Pork from a chicken. Pens, commercial chicken pens. But it  turned out it had a problem. It would only work on dry chicken poop. He fell  out with a financier.

Dr Noel Chambers

So, only good in Victoria 3 or 4 times a day. Yeah. So, are  there any other questions for Robert at the moment? We got one over the back.

Dr Noel Chambers

Sorry. We've got one down the front here. So, you missed  your hand up before? Yeah.

Another person

Question for Robert. I've heard it said that the patent is  only as good as your ability to defend it. And, I mean, that puts a lot of  people off. And the costs for most people are prohibitive. You know, going from  personal experience as a clinical scientist, I run into this a couple of times.  So, there's things out there that I've lost out on severely.

Prof Robert French

Yeah, that's absolutely right. So, you have a patent, and  you're on your own, and somebody just goes off and is doing the thing that's  covered by the patent, and you want to bring in infringement action. Well,  commencing legal proceedings is always expensive, and particularly in this area.

Prof Robert French

And the classic response to an infringement action is a  counterclaim for the challenging the validity of the patent on a range of  grounds. You know that it was, not novel, that it was obvious that the claims  are not fairly based on the specification and a whole array of things. So,  certainly better off, being allied with somebody who's got the muscle to defend  the, to defend the patent.

Dr Noel Chambers

Yeah. So, my first question when I go into, any institution  or anywhere and look at patents, generally is they try to give you some  valuation, is it litigation ready? Because it almost never is. And that changes  the valuation very quickly. But from the foundations point of view, we wrote to  the board, actually wrote to every university in Australia and said, if you  don't have a well-supported business development transfer office, whatever you  want to call it, that's going to support your researches, tell them not to  apply, because if we don't have those teams around you to support the  researchers and let the researchers be researchers.

Dr Noel Chambers

Then the chances of having that research translate to a  benefit just drops off. The risk goes up enormously. So, you need to have those  teams around you.

Prof Robert French

Now there's another there's another wrinkle I should  mention, and this is really for the institutions, for the universities and the  government departments or the, if you've got a patent, which looks good, you  license it off to somebody, say they're in the US to develop it, and then that  somebody, who your licensee, brings you the infringement action because  somebody is infringing and they challenge the validity of the patent.

Prof Robert French

Now, what happens if that patent is found invalid? You've  granted a license over an invalid patent. So, the institution needs to protect  itself against the possibility of, kickback against the institution. We paid  you for a pet, which turned out to be invalid. We want compensation. Yes. So  that's a that's another area.

Dr Noel Chambers

Yep. Over the back.

Bayode Ero-Phillips

Thank you. Question for Robert. My name is by Bayode Ero-Phillips  from Griffith Enterprise, the technology transfer office at Griffith  University. My question is around, enshrining employment protection for  employees within the Patents Act like they have in countries in Germany, like  Germany and the UK.

Prof Robert French

In other words, you think, you're asking me whether I think  it's a good idea to have a provision in the Patents Act, which confers rights  on employee inventors.

Bayode Ero-Phillips

So, the example from Germany is not so within their statute.  It's clearly written there that employers need to share, the rewards of  inventions that created by their employees, they need to share them with  employees.

Prof Robert French

Yeah, well, that gets us into a policy, debate. And, you  know, I don't have any, in principle difficulty with that.

Prof Robert French

The, I one would have to ask, does that provide any,  disincentive to institutions in relation to how they how they engage with their  employees? I suspect not, I think with copyright in the US, they have, maybe  statutory shop rights, as they call it, not exclusive use rights for employees.  I, I can't quite recall now, that, it's certainly the reverse Under our  Copyright Act, if an employee, if an employee generates copyright, the  copyright belongs to the..

Dr Noel Chambers

Oh, yeah. No. Oh, sorry. Oh.

Prof Robert French

So, it's a, a policy suggestion. And. Yeah, you have debates  on whether it's a good idea or a bad. I personally, I don't think it's a bad  idea. Just depends on…

Dr Noel Chambers

I don't think it's a bad idea either.

Dr Noel Chambers

But it is one example where I who I am, it's institution.  But I was asked to help an institution take the technology up to now with  venture capital firms. And the first one I went to, which I knew that wouldn't  invest, said, do you still have a policy where the researchers have no rights?  And they said, yes.

Dr Noel Chambers

And they said, well, you know, we will not invest. We will  not invest unless the researchers have some skin in the game, because it's more  than just tech transfer on paper. And that was happening without a legislative  requirement. And I think Julie's going to come and take over. I think our  time's up, Robert.

Prof Julie White

Thank you very much indeed, Professor Robert French and Noel  Chambers.

Prof Julie White

Thank you for sharing your insights. We very much hope that  you've actually got some really good, useful insight to Inventorship and Intellectual  Property. And hopefully, most importantly, we've actually given some of a very  talented Queensland health clinician researchers, some guidance as well. I'd  also like to have a special shout out to Qlicksmart, inventor of sharps, safety  products that are sold to over 50 countries in the world and the winner of the  International Health Exporter of the year award. So, thank you very much  indeed.