Flinders University gets $34m for aged care research centre

Heart-breaking stories of aged care failures have stunned Australia. A new Flinders Uni centre aims to help fix that.

A national initiative in how to apply the best research in aged care will be led by Flinders University with $34m in federal funding awarded to establish a new research centre.

The centre will have deep links with industry and tap into Flinders’ expertise in nursing, medical devices, palliative care and system-wide issues.

The centre will create 26 new research jobs and 600 internships for aged care workers.

Inaugural head of the centre Professor Sue Gordon said its aim would be to take what works in one aged-care setting and apply that to another setting, backed by solid evidence.

“It’s a new way of doing things,” Professor Gordon said.

“This centre is about taking the research evidence we already have and taking what we already know works well and actually implementing it more broadly and testing it in other situations.

“So you might know something works really well in downtown Adelaide but you don’t know how that’ll go in a remote or rural community, like Coober Pedy.

“We want to understand what’s scalable, what can be done at a national level.”

Professor Sue Gordon will lead the centre.

Four senior leaders at Flinders will be involved in the centre – professors Gordon, Jennifer Tieman, Gill Harvey and Karen Reynolds – in addition to at least 26 new roles.

The 600 internships will be offered to the industry who want to improve the skills of their workforce or have an issue they want to solve or change.

Of the $34m over three years, $15m will be allocated for grants to address particular implementation projects.

Flinders vice-chancellor Colin Stirling said the Aged Care Centre for Growth and Translational Research would have 73 collaborative partners including consumer advocacy and representative groups, aged care service providers, research organisations, translation and commercial partners, social enterprise organisations, peak bodies, workforce development organisations and the South Australian Government.

“Dementia, restorative care and rehabilitation, mental wellbeing, and social isolation have all been identified as priority areas for the centre in its first year,” Professor Stirling said.

Federal Senior Australians and Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said the centre’s creation was “a big step forward when it comes to ensuring the needs of older Australians in care are not just met, but exceeded”.

The announcement follows Flinders breaking ground on its $255m Health and Medical Research Building - which will eventually house elements of the aged care research centre - and staking a claim on North Tce at the Festival Tower adjacent to Parliament House.