Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund

The Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund provides annual funding to support health and medical research and accelerate innovative projects from research to real-world impact.

Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund - Precision Medicine Round

The Precision Medicine round of the Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund will deliver up to $2 million in one-off grants with two tiers of funding:

Tier 1: Funding of up to $125,000 to support discovery and early-stage innovative research proposals for projects that demonstrate potential for translation at a later stage.
Tier 2: Funding of up to $500,000 to accelerate the translation of research into products, services or clinical practices.

This round will help address the underrepresentation of women in health and medical research. Projects led by women or research teams comprised of at least 50% women will receive an additional assessment weighting.

Applications will open at 12pm AEDT on Monday 2 November and close at 11:59PM AEDT Sunday 13 December.

Applications can be submitted via the online portal.

Before submitting an application, please review the Program Guidelines, template Grant Agreement and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

Program Guidelines

Template Grant Agreement

Frequently Asked Questions

Disclaimer: Victorian State Election

As the Victorian State election will be held on Saturday 28 November 2026, the Victorian Government will assume a caretaker role from 6.00pm on 3 November 2026 until such time that either it becomes clear that the incumbent government will be returned, or when a new government is commissioned.

In line with the caretaker conventions, the incoming government will determine whether to proceed with this grant process and award the grants after the caretaker period.

Applicants should be aware that:

all information about this grant process represents the position of the current government only, and is subject to change
the incoming government may decide to not proceed with this grant process.

Outcomes of previous rounds

14 projects were supported under Round 8 of the Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund across the two tiers of funding.

Organisation	Project title
Austin Health	Developing a novel fibrosis biomarker for diabetic kidney disease
Centre for Eye Research Australia	Advancing Gender Equities in Cardiovascular Risk Assessment: Personalised AI-Enabled Retinal Prediction of Coronary Artery Calcium for Women in Rural and Remote Communities
Hudson Institute of Medical Research	Blood-Based Neutrophil Biomarkers for Screening and Early Detection of Silicosis
Hudson Institute of Medical Research	Advancing Precision Diagnosis and Personalised Treatment of Primary Aldosteronism Through Genetic Testing
Monash University	A novel biomarker for the early detection and longitudinal monitoring of renal fibrosis in vivo.
Monash University	Smart Annotation and Interpretation Interface for Multi-Modal Cancer Imaging
Monash University	Leveraging mammograms to screen for cardiovascular disease
Monash University	Advancing a Clinically Relevant Dry Powder Inhaled siRNA Platform for Respiratory Viral Diseases
Monash University	From Lab to Prototype: Shifting Pulmonary Drug Delivery from Patient-Driven to Device-Assisted Therapy
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute	Improving Latent Tuberculosis Management in Victoria Through Evidence on Test Reversion
Melbourne Health	Validation of Urine Protein Biomarker for Kidney Transplant Rejection
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre	Accelerating novel cancer DNA testing and innovative treatments to eradicate the spread of stomach and oesophageal cancers into the abdominal cavity: A Victorian multi-centre clinical trial
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research	Accelerating a Victorian-Developed STING Agonist into First-in-Human Trials for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia
Western Health	Enhancing perinatal care for women with substance use: co-design of a new model of care

Institute	Project title
Swinburne University of Technology	Developing virtual sailing as a new intervention for people with major depressive disorder.
Western Health	ASAPP: Azithromycin for Short cervix and Amniotic fluid sludge (AFS) for the Prevention of Preterm birth - A pilot randomised controlled trial testing the efficacy of this antibiotic in treating AFS.
La Trobe University	Using Intelligent Analytics and Spatial Genomics to Improve Immunotherapy Treatment Outcomes in Breast Cancer Patients.
Bionics Institute	Abdominal vagus nerve stimulation as a therapy for rheumatoid arthritis.
Melbourne Health	Preparations for the National Lung Screening Program; Developing a comprehensive local support and referral network for lung nodules and associated findings in Melbourne’s Northwest.
Monash University	Advancing an Adaptive Platform for Perioperative Infection Trials.
Monash University	Evaluating a new model of care to accelerate the provision of definitive care for patients with chest pain (ACCELERATE-CP).
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute	A specialised integrated paediatric concussion clinic for children and youths: Evaluating the feasibility, effectiveness and commercial viability of the HeadCheck Concussion Clinic.
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute	Long Read Sequencing to Shorten the Diagnostic Odyssey.
Northern Health	Adoption and scale-up of Volunteer Peer Health Navigators to support patients and reduce access barriers in cancer.

Institute	Project title
Bionics Institute	An optical-electrical nerve cuff for localised and selective modulation of neural activity: a drug-free solution for chronic pain.
Bionics Institute	Novel technology to fast tracking early intervention for infants with hearing loss.
BreastScreen Victoria Inc.	Artificial Intelligence in BreastScreen Victoria Mammogram Reading: Saving more lives and reducing costs.
Burnet Institute	Accelerating preclinical development of a novel bioactive to optimise the vaginal microbiome.
Eastern Health	A pilot trial of Modify: A novel, smartphone-delivered brain-training intervention to reduce smoking in Victorians.
Hudson Institute	Fast-tracking the clinical development of novel host-derived compounds for severe lung infections.
Hudson Institute	Advancing Female Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery Outcomes using Nanotechnology.
Monash University	Pathway to scale up Inhaled Oxytocin for the treatment of postpartum haemorrhage.
Monash University	A digital solution to empower patients and caregivers to report clinical deterioration: keeping patients safe in hospital.
Monash University	Establishing non-invasive screening for early detection of silicosis.
Peninsula Health	Staying Active with Multimorbidity In Acute hospital (STAMInA Trial): a randomised controlled trial investigating the feasibility of allied health assistant delivered rehabilitation of people with multimorbidity in an acute hospital setting.
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre	Characterising the melanoma tumour microenvironment using novel omic technologies.
The Royal Women's Hospital	Early Feasibility Study and Development of an Airway Pressure Monitoring Device for Neonates and Infants on Non-invasive Respiratory Support.
The University of Melbourne	Evaluation of novel coagulation and endothelial biomarkers in individualised cardiovascular disease risk assessment.
Victoria University	Exercise to counteract the negative effects of sleep loss on glycaemic control in women.

Institute	Project title
Austin Medical Research Foundation	Evaluating the efficacy of a Bone-Health Nutrition Training Program for food service staff in aged care: a food-based approach to fracture risk reduction.
Melbourne Health	Linking to hepatitis care through linking existing data for Victorians living with viral hepatitis: The LINK-2-HepCare Project.
Monash Health	Piloting the role of a Cultural Liaison Officer in following up notifiable communicable diseases at a Local Public Health Unit.
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute	A mental health literacy program for teachers and schools: Evaluating the feasibility and effectiveness of Decode Mental Health & Wellbeing.

Institute	Project Title
Alfred Health	In vivo mapping of neuroprotective neuroinflammation using a novel PET radiotracer.
Avipep Pty Ltd	A novel antibody-based therapy for multiple myeloma; an incurable cancer killing over 1000 Australians annually and 200,000 worldwide, within 5years of diagnosis.
Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute	A novel surface engineering approach to prevent in-stent complications in Diabetic patients after stent surgery.
Burnet Institute	A rapid point of care test (POCT) for liver health monitoring to enable community-based screening and timely clinical intervention for people with liver damage.
Deakin University	EndoCannED – Medicinal Cannabis for the reduction in emergency department presentations in people with endometriosis: a randomised, controlled feasibility study‘.
La Trobe University	A therapy that controls metastatic breast cancer by preventing repair of DNA damage.
La Trobe University	NanoMslide: innovation assessment of intraoperative cancer diagnostic.
Melbourne Health	The Poly-omic Drivers of Brain Metastases.
Monash University	Employing artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate the rate of drug development: Identifying inhibitors of fatty-acid binding protein FABP4.
Monash University	Better biomarkers for dementia diagnosis: Increasing equity and efficiency in dementia care.
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute	A Pilot Study of Medicinal Cannabis in Paediatric Patients undergoing Palliative Care for Non-oncological Conditions.
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre	Empowering treatment options with targeted PET imaging of breast cancer - interrogating HER2. Beyond the yellow bucket.
Royal Melbourne Hospital	Establishment of tissue culture methods for SARS-CoV-2 propagation that ensure working stocks reflect the pathogenicity and genetic composition of circulating global clades.
Royal Women's Hospital	Safer care for critically ill newborns: validation of a new medical device for placement and monitoring of neonatal central venous catheters by ultrasound.
Royal Women's Hospital	Improving Obstetric Outcomes Following IVF Treatment.
University of Melbourne	ID-Predict (Tuberculosis): Predicting recent Tuberculosis infection and future disease risk in Victorian TB contacts.
University of Melbourne	EyeCP: Measuring Intracranial Pressure in the intensive care without brain surgery.
University of Melbourne	Breaking bacterial antibiotic resistance to frontline therapeutics.
Victoria University	Examining the effects of gender affirming hormone therapies on fitness and muscle health in transgender Australians: The GAME Study.
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research	Accelerating translational outcomes based on super-responders from the SOLACE2 trial of immunotherapy priming in ovarian cancer.
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research	CRISPR point-of-care diagnostics to dramatically improve management of STIs, mitigate outbreaks and combat antimicrobial resistance.
Western Health	Genomically informed active surveillance in intermediate risk prostate cancer GenI-AIRSPACE.

Page last updated: 2 November 2026

Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund