Academic Director Insights
As I reflect on the achievements throughout the last year, I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge a year of impact, collaboration and growth across the Kolling Institute. Our teams continued to build on the gains in recent years and I am proud of the large body of high-quality, impactful research completed across the year. Our researchers are at the top of their game, with many consistently named among the best in their field in the world rankings. Few institutes can boast the large number of researchers in this prestigious group, with over 30 Kolling researchers ranked in the top two percent of global experts in their speciality. Work broadened across many areas, with the development of Australia’s first guidelines for physiotherapists caring for patients with spinal cord injuries, crucial steps towards gene therapy for Meniere’s disease and a kidney organoid to improve treatments for kidney disease. Researchers are closer to a new test to identify the risk of heart disease, tailoring pain solutions for multicultural communities and working to capture people with a high risk of frailty and likely to have a potentially devastating fall. It was pleasing to see the significant progress by our cancer researchers, including a breakthrough with investigations into leukaemia and the launch of the NORTH STAR VNP clinical trials and research centre, which promises to fast track access to the very latest cancer medications and clinical trials. Our key performance indicators were encouraging with researchers securing $12.6 million in highly-competitive grant funding. This figure may rise with the outcome of a large number of grants still pending. Our success rates with category 1 funding continues to track well above the national average. We continued to strengthen our international partnerships, with our researchers collaborating on publications with investigators from 130 countries in 2024. This represents a 60 per cent increase since 2021, and includes researchers from right across the world. I am pleased to report our research activity is expanding with 629 papers published in 2024, up
from 576 in 2023. It is wonderful to see consistent growth in this area, clearly demonstrating the commitment to publishing high-quality peer- reviewed papers. Our researchers continued to make their mark on the world stage with internationally respected investigator Professor Chris Little elected a Fellow of the Orthopaedic Research Society. The accolade acknowledges Chris’ achievement and contribution to the society and the field of musculoskeletal research over more than 20 years. In a sign of the strength of the Meniere’s disease research at the Kolling Institute, Professor Jose Antonio Lopez-Escamez received the Nylen-Hallpike Medal in Sweden. The highly-competitive award is granted to the world’s best vestibular researcher in basic science. With the review of the Kolling’s research strategy underway, I would like to thank all those involved as we work to refresh our strategy and build on the improvements realised in recent years. It is important that we have a robust strategic framework to ensure we are in the best position to progress our innovative multidisciplinary work and widen access to high quality care. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of all our researchers. Your commitment and unrelenting dedication have gone a long way towards our research success and improving the health of our community.
Professor James Elliott Academic Director Kolling Institute
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