Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Success in the South West

ECU University Department of Rural Health South West Director Professor Beth Armstrong is part of a research team recently successful in obtaining a $933,000 grant through the national Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) scheme.

The Project is entitled “Knowledge + Innovation = Power: An Aboriginal Medical Service striving for excellence through Indigenous Data Sovereignty” and is a major achievement for both SWAMS and the South West in obtaining this major competitive funding aimed to address a locally identified need.

The project will  provide a case study demonstrating how the health and wellbeing priorities of Aboriginal communities can inform measures and indicators that can be applied by services to their models of care and operational management.  It is led by SWAMS and UWA, with collaborators including experienced Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal researchers from Wungening Aboriginal Corporation, Menzies School of Health Research, Murdoch University, and Edith Cowan University.

An outline of the project is as follows:

The South West Aboriginal Medical Service aims to identify culturally appropriate solutions to bridge the gap between funders’ requirements and community needs/aspirations. Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) is the right of First Nations people to determine data collection, analysis and reporting based in their priorities. Our project will provide an IDS model for developing novel data tools to be used in service planning, based in Noongar concepts of health/wellbeing and organisational needs.