The Australian Government has announced $40 million in grants to support nurses and midwives to conduct research aimed at improving clinical care and practice.
The 2026 Clinician Researchers: Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health grants, funded by the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and administered by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), will provide grants of up to $1.5 million to help nurses and midwives on the wards undertake research.
Projects will be funded across two streams.
The first will support clinician researcher-led projects conducted within health services that aim to accelerate the translation of evidence into practice.
A second stream will support clinician researcher-led research focused on strengthening health system performance, workforce innovation and/or service improvement. Within Stream 2, topics may include models of care, professional scope of practice, workforce development in regional rural and remote settings, or workforce development and pathways to research.
Research funded through the program is expected to improve outcomes for patients, address identified local health priorities, support service innovation and improved health system performance, and build the capacity of clinicians to undertake research.
The $40 million funding round forms part of the MRFF’s broader Clinician Researchers initiative, which is investing $200 million over 10 years from 2024–25 to 2033–34 to support healthcare professionals to undertake research into issues important to clinical care.
A key aim of the initiative is to make it easier for health professionals to combine research with clinical practice.
The latest grant round provides a significant opportunity for nurses and midwives, whose frontline roles place them in a strong position to identify gaps in care, workforce challenges and opportunities to improve the way health services are delivered.
Applications must be submitted by an approved Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Eligible Organisation and can only be submitted to one of the two research streams. The leading Principle investigator must be a practicing nurse, midwife, or allied health professional and no less than 60% of the chief investigator team can be made up of clinicians. Holding a PhD is not a requirement and there is no minimum amount of funding that can be applied for.
Minimum application data must be submitted by 14 October 2026, with applications closing at 5pm ACT time on 11 November 2026.
Successful projects are expected to receive funding from June 2027.
Assoc Prof Micah Peters PhD, ANMF (Federal Office National Policy Research Adviser), said nurses and midwives have faced long-standing barriers to accessing funding to support research despite representing the majority of the health and maternity care workforce.
“Nurses and midwives working around Australia are uniquely positioned to identify and address inefficiencies in care delivery, develop innovative models of care, and generate practical, system-level solutions that improve patient outcomes and workforce sustainability,” he told the ANMJ.
“This grant scheme goes a long way to improve avenues of representation of nurses and midwives in competitive health and medical research funding.
“It is a massive win for the ANMF and nurses and midwives more broadly. We have consistently called on the Government to provide a dedicated, nationally coordinated funding mechanism for nurse- and midwife-led health and evaluation research and this scheme directly addresses key asks in our most recent pre-Budget submission to the Federal Government.”
Information on applying for the grant here
