[COM] SAHMRI | $200m

[Will]

This is a nice surprise from the federal budget. I am surprised this was not promoted as heavily as the other goodies that SA got from the nation building budget. But nevertheless excellent news, as this will help regain Adelaide its spiritual right as Australia's intellectual city.

From Telstra bigpond news:

SA medical research institute plan
Sunday, May 17, 2009 » 10:46pm

Details of the new $200 million health and medical research institute to be built in Adelaide have been unveiled.

Details of the new $200 million health and medical research institute to be built in Adelaide and funded by the federal government have been unveiled.

The state government and federal member for Adelaide Kate Ellis revealed pictures of the building to be located next to the planned new Royal Adelaide Hospital in the city, with construction to commence next year and be completed by 2012.

Construction of the building is expected to create about 1400 direct and 1500 indirect jobs, with up to 675 researchers to work there on completion.

The government said about half of those were expected to be new to the state.

Premier Mike Rann told journalists in Adelaide the government had lobbied the federal government for funding for the project.

'We were absolutely delighted that the expertise we have in South Australia in medical research, some of which is world leading, will be getting fantastic new world-class facilities,' he said.

Mr Rann said medical research facilities were currently 'scattered' around the city and health minister John Hill said they were desperately short of space.

Mr Hill said the new 25000-square-metre facility would 'attract the very best health and medical minds from around the world'.

Early next week, advertisements will be placed nationally and internationally to appoint a design team with experience in medical research facilities.

A managing contractor will be appointed soon, the government said.

Professor John Hopwood, currently based at Women's and Children's Hospital and one of Australia's leading medical researchers, said it was 'the beginning of a very, very rich future in medical research'.

He said he expected many overseas researchers to be interested in moving to Adelaide to work once the new facility was completed.

'Practically, this will overcome our lack of dedicated laboratory space that is drastically needed to coordinate and focus high quality medical research, and to encourage leading researchers to SA,' he said.

Current Render 22/02/2011

692740-h-amp-m.jpg (62.91 KiB) Viewed 9650 times

[Will]

From the Flinders University website:

Vice-Chancellors back new research institute
Posted on: May 15th, 2009 by Marketing and Communications

The new $200 million Health and Medical Research Institute announced in the Federal Budget this week will underpin a new phase of medical research in South Australia, according to the Vice-Chancellors of the State’s three universities.

Welcoming the decision to build the new Institute in Adelaide, the South Australian Vice-Chancellor’s Committee (SAVCC) said the facility would be a catalyst for new partnerships and strengthen existing relationships between university researchers and the hospitals in the State.

Speaking on behalf of his University of Adelaide and University of South Australia colleagues, Professor James McWha and Professor Peter Høj respectively, SAVCC Chair and Flinders Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Barber said the Institute would add a new dimension to the health and medical research effort in SA.

“The Institute will encourage collaborations between the various parties, draw on the skills and strengths in our respective institutions, and produce positive results from an enhanced research effort,” Professor Barber said.

“New and innovative research will help solve the medical mysteries that compromise the health and lifestyle of our people and communities,” he said.

“We applaud this significant investment in the future health of our nation and look forward to working with the State and Federal governments on the further development of this important initiative.”

[crawf]

From the tiser, which I agree with

Save the RAH chairman Dr Jim Katsaros said the institute should be built in the Frome Rd precinct, where high-level researchers were based.

"It's an empty shell looking for quality people and quality people will not go there," he said.

"This building is in the middle of no where."

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/stor ... 82,00.html

[deano91]

There's another picture in the Western Railyards topic from the AdelaideNow article I posted about this in there.

[UrbanSG]

SAHMRI = South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute





This development will be located directly east of the new RAH near the current rail control tower area for TransportSA once they have moved.



Website with further information:

http://www.health.sa.gov.au/Default.aspx?tabid=619

Fly-over:

http://www.newrah.sa.gov.au/future-heal ... sahmri.htm

[Wayno]

SAHMRI = South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute ($200 million +)

wow! construction to start pre-election in feb/mar 2010. Surely that makes the RAH on the railyards a certainty!

[Will]

Urban, we already have a thread for this project:

http://www.sensational-adelaide.com/for ... f=7&t=2399

[Howie]

Thread merged.

[Howie]

Forum member has just informed me that HMRI contract awarded to WoodsBagot SA. Press release to follow shortly.

[Professor]

Great: Bring it on. Should be a major injection (pun intended) into Adelaide and the medical profession here.

[cruel_world00]

Great: Bring it on. Should be a major injection (pun intended) into Adelaide and the medical profession here.

Pity about the location. Steps back from opened can marked "worms."

[stelaras]

Great: Bring it on. Should be a major injection (pun intended) into Adelaide and the medical profession here.

Well one can argue until the cows come home on this one....

However. given that we are going to get this new hospital in a location that not many people seem to want it makes perfect sense to have your medical research facilities close by... So from that perspective building the SAHMRI in that current location SEEMS fair...

Now the issues with the RAH:

1. The university is about 1.5km down the road so there is an immediate issue with young trainee doctors doing their rotations at the RAH and actually being able to get there.

2. routine hospital blood work that the IMVS currently performs on site will either have to be duplicated at the new RAH or as is likely to happen the service will remain where it is and the results will take longer to be passed onto the treating physicians.

3. Clinicians who also run research groups will find it more difficult to mentor and communicate with their research groups due to the geographical distance between the new RAH and the current research groups in the IMVS, Hanson Centre, Medical and dental schools as well as the University. (Some of hese groups are two small to move to the new SAHMRI and are not being considered by the government and the majority see no benefit to moving to SAHMRI anyway).

The SAHMRI:

The goal of the SAHMRI is to create a centre of research excellence in SA to be primarily used to attract high impact medical researchers from overseas and interstate, with some bolstering from Adelaide's own pioneering researchers. The target number from what i understand based on my interaction with the National Health and Medical Research Council is 50 high impact research groups to be recruited.
What this will do in theory is make SA more competitive with the Eastern states (primarily Victoria and NSW) which get the bulk of the research dollars with the goal being to get more research dollars into the state.


Issues with SAHMRI:

1. physical location is remote to the university so interaction/collaboration will be limited as will be the provision of resources such as library access (university of Adelaide has a rather extensive and well resourced medical library which will most probably not be linked to the SAHMRI as it will be an independent research centre). Also, hardware (state of the are imaging, animal facilities, supercomputer access etc) and software (bioinformatics). These are all very expensive services when you source them as an outsider!

2. Aside from money the second most important lifeline of researcher groups are students. Access to students will be limited as students prefer to stay aligned to the universities they get their degrees in (mostly) and universities don't want to let them go as the uni misses out on dollars from the government. This is a big problem currently with most independent research institutes. To give you an example there were over 300 students that attended the Monash University open day for medical research, at our local institute (which is affiliated with Monash) we only got 22 students with second tier GPA's.

3. By far the biggest problem facing the new SAHMRI is the actual recruitment of High Impact researchers. To put it simply there aren't 50 high impact researchers that will be willing to forego their current location to come to Adelaide to do research. (It poses a monumental risk for them)

So what is likely to happen:

The SAHMRI will be built and it will filled with middle level research groups, but it will struggle:

1. From a technological standpoint (getting hi-tech equipment to perform pioneering research)
2. recruiting groups that can actually change the amount of money that comes into the state for medical research
3. It will struggle to stay afloat financially (200million is not a great deal of money and as i understand it that money is for bricks and mortar not support and infrastructure)


What do i think should happen:

Simply that 200million should be put into the IMVS/Hanson Centre and all other research precincts in SA to support and boost the great research that is already happening there.

just my personal view as a senior medical researcher

[Howie]

Press release
http://www.ministers.sa.gov.au/news.php?id=5325

Architect appointed for SA’s new Health and Medical Research Institute
September 8, 2009

Joint Media Release with the Hon Mark Butler MP, Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Health

Local architecture firm Woods Bagot will lead an international team to design South Australia’s brand new Federally-funded $200 million Health and Medical Research Institute.

Health Minister John Hill said, “This exciting development will bring significant benefits to SA’s economy and ensure we continue to play a leading role on the global health and medical research stage”.

The Research Facility will be built adjacent to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, in the city’s west end and will be the first building to be completed within the new health and medical precinct.

The facility will become the headquarters for the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and will be integrated with the new hospital.

Minister Hill said, “This synergy of research activity and patient services will integrate health practitioners, medical researchers and students in an industry-leading health and medical hub.

Woods Bagot have had extensive experience in this field, with past projects including, Westmead Children's Hospital Medical Research Facility, Monash University BioTech Research Facility and Qatar Science and Technology Park in the Middle East.

“The design team will now start to work closely with the research community, health sector and universities to invite their ideas and input”.

Woods Bagot have teamed up with international lab specialists, RFD, a laboratory design consulting firm who have consulted on over 1000 laboratory building projects in 45 states throughout the U.S, as well as in the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Australia, and Asia.

RFD specialises exclusively in the programming and design of teaching and research laboratory facilities for college and university, industry, and government clients.

Mark Butler said, “I’m really pleased to see such an impressive design team working on this significant project to advance health and medical research facilities."

[Professor]

I agree with, and respect, the opinions of those directly involve in the poposed move to the West side of the city and also the potential for some service duplication and inefficiencies in operation. However, the reality is that the hospital and the new research centre will be located on the railway land area and on the western side of the city. I agree that it will always be difficult to compete (for example) with the Burnet Institute or the Monash Institute of Medical Research, let alone the large US and European centres that have significant funding and resource advantages as well as a much larger pool of medical research staff.

But I guess we must try to at least maintain some form of parity with other States and institutions. And the Federal money was for a new building so that's a fixed decision. There will be almost $2b spent on the new RAH and research facilities and infrastructure which will hopefully create some form of critical mass that (to some extent) enables SA researchers to have an increased impact and engagement with their peers.

The more vexed question is not the location of the new RAH (a greenfield site generally provides a much better building outcome). It is the PPP financial arrangements where things can really come unstuck, in relation to value for money and the actual long-term costs to the SA taxpayer. People are pretty silent on that aspect at the moment, but the PPP arrangements will make or break the RAH in terms of what we will get for our many $$$$$$$$

[stelaras]

Well said Professor and i agree with most things you have posed.

You will find that the state government and PPP will find agreement and the new RAH will get built. There has been too many public announcements, so they wont let it fail. We have only got to look at the new Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne currently being built (state government + PPP).

The hospital will get built and once all the teething problems get sorted out, those that are knocking it will most probably eat there words. We are the only state (i believe) that is building a brand new general hospital (Westmead in NSW and the VICS are building children's hospitals).

SAHMRI
Based on my recollection with the figures (tried to find them on my PC but couldn't) SA doesn't do too badly in terms of money when you compare it to a per capita level. Sure we can always do better and i think each year SA does do better if only marginally.

The real issue for me is trying to achieve a critical mass of exceptional researchers which can make a difference. There just aren't that many out there, the NHMRC whilst absolutely behind the new HMRI as it is a good opportunity for SA to stake its claim they are still worried at the ability of the SA government to fill it with high impact researchers.

Remember that the figures mentioned are only bricks and mortar and does not include fitting out of the institute with state of the are equipment. That money will have to be found by the researchers that move in, as there is no research institute on the planet that allows a particular research group to leave its from underneath its wings and take their state of the art equipment with them..