For several years, the idea of a multinational funding scheme to support research in the Asia-Pacific region has been brewing. Finally, at the biannual Australian Health and Medical Research Congress late last year, policymakers publicly discussed the merits and challenges of such a venture for the first time.

The congress in Melbourne, convened by the Australian Society for Medical Research (ASMR), attracted about 1,500 delegates from 18 countries. Dignitaries at the November event included Australia's minister for mental health and aging and the acting consul-general of Japan.

Alison Butt, who held the post of ASMR president until the congress, says that with the numbers of scientists in countries such as China overtaking numbers in the US, the Asia-Pacific region should combine forces to nurture the growth of local medical research.

“The Society feels that there are enormous benefits to collective schemes that will fund projects that combine the region's scientific resources and capabilities,” she says. “We have evidence for economic gains in health and medical research that extend from reducing disease burden and associated healthcare costs to minimizing work absence. There's also a case to be made in ensuring there's a critical mass of appropriately trained scientists to meet industry demands.” The EU's Framework Programme funding scheme is held up as one potential model of multinational collaboration. The Framework Programme, now in its seventh iteration, has a budget of €50 billion ($66 billon), of which a little bit less than 10% is allocated for health research. The 27 EU member nations commit approximately 3% of their GDP to the scheme, on average.

The scale of funding for the proposed Asia Pacific Health and Medical Research Funding Union (APHMRFU) was not discussed in detail, but it would most likely be pegged to a percentage of GDP. ASMR plans to issue a statement and will begin preparing a proposal for the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum in early 2012.

“Asia's population is aging more rapidly than in the rest of the world; in some countries the number of people over 65 is increasing at 3% per year—twice the rate in most Western countries. And Asia is usually the origin of infectious disease pandemics,” says Colin Blakemore, former head of the UK's Medical Research Council who holds appointments at Oxford University in the UK and A*STAR (Singapore's Agency for Science Technology and Research). “These are just a few of the areas in which everyone could gain from collaborative research efforts.”

Prerequisite discussion

Bob Williamson, secretary for science policy at the Australian Academy of Science, believes that requiring cross-country collaborations such as those required by the EU's Framework Programme should also be a prerequisite for a proportion of APHMRFU grants.

“They force the best scientists from countries who have not traditionally participated in science at the highest levels to work together in the international arena,” Williamson says.

Enric Banda, president of Euroscience, an organization similar to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says that this aspect of the EU's Framework Programme has been successful. But he points to the European Research Council, formed in 2007, which bases its decisions purely on scientific excellence, as another possible funding mechanism, saying “the ideas and priority areas that are being funded aren't politically motivated; the researchers are involved in the decision making.”

Mechanisms aside, the Asia Pacific region lacks an EU-style political center, which may be a potential barrier to the formation of the proposed APHMRFU, particularly when it comes to financing.

The problem of co-funding international grant schemes is evidenced by the Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP), conceived by Japan and founded in 1989. Its aim of funding intercontinental cross-disciplinary teams is similar to the proposed APHMRFU, but it has a narrower scope and different agenda, giving room for coexistence.

Japan expected that many countries would join and share the cost. Indeed thirteen individual countries and the EU now fund the HFSP. Australia, which joined in 2004, contributes approximately 1% of the $60 million budget. Japan, however, remains the primary contributor—currently providing just over half of the total funds.

Given this history, Butt explains that the new APHMRFU venture “has to be truly inclusive and collaborative to succeed; it cannot be driven by a single nation.”