FHRI Fund Priorities
Disbursements from Future Health Research and Innovation (FHRI) Fund investment income are guided by a Strategy and Priorities.
The Advisory Council for the FHRI Fund is responsible for developing the Strategy and Priorities. The Department of Health then develops Programs and Initiatives that contribute to achieving one or more Priority and the Advisory Council provides a recommendation to the Minister for Medical Research regarding whether these Programs and Initiatives should be approved.
The Strategy, Priorities and Programs and Initiatives are approved by the Minister for Medical Research.
The FHRI Fund governance page provides further details about the roles and responsibilities for developing the Strategy and Priorities. Please see the expandable content at the bottom of this page for definitions of the Strategy, Priorities and Programs and Initiatives.
FHRI Fund Strategic Themes and Priorities
The approved 2025-30 Strategic Themes and Priorities are presented below. See the FHRI Fund Strategy page for further details. The FHRI Fund Programs and Initiatives page lists the Programs and Initiatives aligned to the Strategy.
Strategic Theme 1: Connect and Collaborate |
| Description: Long-term change comes from building shared solutions across disciplines, sectors, and services. This priority supports structures and relationships that extend well beyond the initial spotlight area. |
| Priority 1: Empower Pathways and collaboration: Long-term change comes from building shared solutions across disciplines, sectors, and services. This priority supports structures and relationships that extend well beyond the initial spotlight area |
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Priority 2: Inspire Impact through an aligned focus: Concentrating effort on a single, uniquely Western Australian health challenge each year creates clarity and energy across the system. This focused approach is designed to deliver visible outcomes and elevate WA’s national and global profile. |
| Priority 3: Be bold and predictable: By committing to ambitious, system-wide challenges and publishing them in advance, the FHRI Fund gives partners time to align, prepare, and act with confidence. Predictability builds momentum and invites meaningful co-investment. |
Strategic Theme 2: Accelerate and Translate |
| Description: Boost commercialisation in WA by backing bold, health innovations through competitive, investor-led programs, turning ideas into real-world impact, attracting co-investment, and growing WA’s health and medical research and innovation ecosystem |
| Priority 4: Underwrite innovation: Support high-potential, early-stage health innovations that carry commercial and translational promise. Funding will be structured to absorb early risk and provide clear stage-gated progression toward impact |
| Priority 5: Activate the innovation community: Engage WA’s researchers, entrepreneurs, and startups through competitive programs that promote bold thinking and real-world application. These initiatives will build momentum, visibility, and a stronger culture of innovation. |
| Priority 6: Build investment partnerships: Form long-term partnerships with investors who bring both capital and commercial capability with a shared commitment to WA-led ventures. These relationships will amplify FHRI Fund investments and accelerate the path to market |
Strategic Theme 3: Foundational Confidence |
| Description: Supporting the workforce, systems and infrastructure that underpin WA’s health and medical research and innovation sector, ensuring it can attract top talent, be competitive for national grants, and deliver sustainable growth |
| Priority 7: Retain early to mid-career researchers: Provide targeted support to secure the future of WA’s health and medical research and innovation workforce at a critical career stage. Fellowships, near-miss grants, and career pathways will help reduce attrition and keep top talent engaged. |
| Priority 8: Attract and retain world class talent: Attract and retain global research leaders to WA with competitive programs and conditions. This includes offering strong infrastructure, career incentives, and opportunities to lead impactful work. |
| Priority 9: Make WA competitive: Deliver funding and ecosystem support that improves WA’s success in national and global funding rounds. Investments will focus on closing capability gaps, supporting funding navigation, encouraging collaboration, and rewarding open science |
FHRI Fund Priority Goals: 2022/23 to 2024/25
The approved 2022/23 to 2024/25 Priority Goals are presented below. The FHRI Fund Strategy also includes Focus Areas. See the FHRI Fund Strategy page for further details. The FHRI Fund Programs and Initiatives page lists the Programs and Initiatives approved under these Priority Goals.
Priority Goals |
| Enhance clinical trial capacity and expertise to improve the quality of clinical trials in WA and make the State more attractive to funders of clinical trials (grant funding and commercial sponsors). |
| Enhance health and medical research literacy, skills and experience of consumers so that they engage more in research. |
| Enhance skills in innovation (including commercialisation), which will advance the quality and capacity of innovation in WA and help WA innovators to obtain funding to support their work. |
| Establish innovation P&Is to support topical and/or early stage ideas and enable opportunities for these innovative ideas to secure follow-on funding from commercial/other funders. |
| Establish co-funding partnerships that will secure genuinely new non-government funding for research and innovation aligned with Priorities for the FHRI Fund. |
| Provide cash commitments for submission to major competitive co-funding programs, making Western Australian-led applications more competitive and, therefore, increasing the State's share of national and international competitive funding. |
| Support the development of early- and mid-career researchers, helping them to achieve an independent and self-sustaining career. |
| Target high-performing researchers in WA to maintain and/or advance the State's position as a leader in health and medical research. |
The Western Australian Future Health Research and Innovation Fund Act 2012 (the Act) provides that the Governance Framework will include a requirement for the development of a Future Health Research and Innovation (FHRI) Fund Strategy and FHRI Fund Priority Goals and that these must be tabled in Parliament and published online.
The Governance Framework describes the Strategy, Priority Goals and Programs and Initiatives as follows:
The Strategy provides a high-level vision and goals for research and innovation in WA and forms the basis from which the Priorities are derived. The Advisory Council for the FHRI Fund leads development of the Strategy and the extensive consultations that inform this process. The Advisory Council recommends the Strategy to the Minister for Medical Research for approval.
A Priority is an approach, need or opportunity that has been determined to be critical to achieving the vision of the Strategy that is in place at the time and that aligns with the purpose of the FHRI Fund, as described in the object of the Act. The Priorities are prepared by the Advisory Council and subsequently provided to the Minister for Medical Research for approval.
A Program or Initiative is a mechanism through which funding is directed to a specific purpose and that contributes to achieving one or more Priority. Programs and Initiatives are approved by the Minister for Medical Research based on a proposal by the Director General of the Department of Health. However, the Act provides that the Minister for Medical Research must seek a recommendation from the Advisory Council and consider the recommendation subsequently received before making, or applying FHRI Account moneys to, Programs and Initiatives in the financial year.