Stephen Leeder -Uni of Sydney - Invest now or later? The Government plan to invest the money raised for the Medical Research Fund for 6 years so that it can grow before allocating

Stephen LeederMenzies Centre for Health PolicyThe Medical Journal of Australia

Thursday September 25th 2014

The Future of Medical Research Symposium

How should we invest in research for the future?

Form of PresentationWhat kind of future can we anticipate?What will be the big drivers of medical research

expenditure be in the future?How can we organise to pay for these?

Menzies Centre for Health Policy Stephen Leeder ─ The Medical Journal of Australia

The kind of future we can anticipate


In 20 years…Assuming the absence of major war,

massive international financial chaos, an unknown global pestilence or unforeseeable catastrophe, Australia will still be a prosperous country and will retain a strong commitment to treating illness and sustaining health.

Technological advances will be affecting the way we treat a wide variety of conditions today, including the degenerative disorders.


The communication of information, both personal and technical, will be revolutionized affecting the way we practise, as in parts of the US that are fully connected even now.

The computation of information will

continue to grow rapidlyAgeing of the population will grow.

In 20 years…


“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

Donald Rumsfeld


The Future

Knownknowns

Knownunknowns

Unknownunknowns


Known knowns Age Selected ‘One Nation’ population pyramids, Australia, 1998─2098


Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index



The big drivers of medical research in the future


How are we doing with IT?• Every two days we create as much information as we did

from the dawn of civilization to 2003 – that’s 5 exabytes of data or five billion gigabytes



A 27 km Franco-Swiss underground racetrack involving 10,000 scientists

The Large Hadron Collider


How to fund the future of medical researchThe value of a diversified portfolioArguing the case – a value proposition in a science-

saturated societyCapital and recurrent costs within a national science

policy with generous government supportObtaining more investment from private industryLocating Australian medical research internationally.


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Stephen Leeder -Uni of Sydney - Invest now or later? The Government plan to invest the money raised for the Medical Research Fund for 6 years so that it can grow before allocating

Leadership & Management

health policy stephen

stephen leedermenzies

sustaining health

scientistsmenzies centre

gigabytesmenzies centre

vmenzies centre

australian medical research

donald rumsfeldmenzies