• Table of Contents
• Disability Investment Group
• Executive Summary
• National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) – A Possible Model
• Principal Recommendation
• Summary of Other Recommendations
• Section I
• Part 1: Experience of Disability in Australia
• Part 2: Need for Change
• Section II
• Part 3: Establishing a New National Disability Insurance Scheme
• Part 4: Ensuring Income Support is Adequate
• Part 5: Improving savings and taxation incentives for privately - funded services
• Section III
• Part 6: Providing More Housing for People with Disability
• Part 7: Offering Better Employment Opportunities
• Part 8: Building Research and Best Practice
• Appendices
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D
• Appendix E
• Appendix F
• Appendix G
• Appendix H
• Appendix I
• Appendix J

The Way Forward – A New Disability Policy Framework For Australia

• Previous: Appendix I

Appendix J: National Disability Research Institute – Draft Charter

The Australian National Disability Research Institute (ANDRI) will provide leadership and support for strategically directed research into disability related issues. It will help to convert evidence into appropriate policy and practical assistance for Australians who have disability, their families and carers. The Institute will work to promote partnership and collaboration to foster research with practical outcomes and prospects for commercial application.

The role of the Institute will be to operate as a point of coordination and facilitation of:

• parties involved in or interested in undertaking research on disability related issues;
• best practice and identification of leading practitioners;
• the development and propagation of information on the commercial application of disability-related proposals; and
• dissemination of data and research findings.

The Institute will be at the pinnacle of disability research in Australia, combining international best practice with current thinking and research in Australia. It will operate across a variety of institutions, and will be open to all interested participants and investors, as a means of promoting collaboration and growth in the area.

Objectives

The objectives of the Institute are to:

1. develop the capacity of the disability research sector;
2. foster best practice and excellence in research on disability-related issues;
3. encourage and facilitate increased private investment into disability research;
4. establish and articulate national priorities in the field of disability research;
5. consolidate and harness existing research efforts on disability-related issues;
6. identify and work to address gaps in current disability-related research;
7. promote collaboration, both nationally and internationally, between and within academia, government, industry and disability-oriented professionals and service providers;
8. encourage and facilitate disability-related research with practical outcomes and applications;
9. provide a means of linking opportunities, commercialisation, industry, engineering and medical research with government policy;
10. facilitate translation of research effort and outcomes into practice and policy;
11. work with national and international partners to identify and develop sources of accurate information;
12. provide advice on opportunities relevant to and issues affecting the disability sector to build a policy, regulatory and industry environment conducive to research; and
13. collect and efficiently disseminate information on the strength and value of disability research; current and potential research activity; and data and research findings.

Priorities

ANDRI should give priority to research which:

• is directly relevant to the lives of people with disability;
• is translatable into evidence based policy and practice;
• has practical outcomes and applications;
• engenders commercial application or partnership with industry;
• covers a range of research across national interest projects, commercially viable projects and data collection; and
• encompasses the broadest range of policy relevant social research, practice research, engineering and technology and medical research.

Funding Arrangements

The Institute will have core funding from government but will be expected to find additional philanthropic and commercial funding as well as funding through other competitive government grants, such as through National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council grants. It would also harvest the relevant research from other disciplines. Initial funding will be $10 million per annum within the National Disability Agreement. Future funding should also be sourced through the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The Institute will also provide funding to individuals, organisations and research bodies undertaking or proposing to undertake specific research within the priority areas.

The Institute will be expected to cover the following broad types of research and likely funding sources:

• national interest activities, such as policy, advocacy, research and data collections, where there was no prospect of a commercial return and the most appropriate funding source is government funding;
• projects capable of earning a commercial rate of return, where funding could be sourced by companies prepared to invest with the expectation of market rates of return; and
• projects which were not national interest and not capable of earning commercial rates of return but which are important to quality of life, which would most likely be funded by government funding, philanthropic organisations or a combination of these.

Governance Arrangements

The Institute will receive high level scientific, strategic and business direction and support through strategically focussed governance arrangements. The Institute’s governing body should include persons with broad engagement with industry and philanthropy, including people with commercial experience and skills and more traditional academic research experts, as well as people with disability, their families and carers.

In considering the commercial application of research, there will be a need to forge relationships with industry to provoke more thinking about how to translate research into what is needed and to be results oriented. This will need strong early engagement with the commercial sector as potential customers for research work.

Future governance arrangements should secure collaboration between the Institute and the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme. The scheme could also provide future funding for the Institute. The Institute should be able to utilise de-identified data collected through a future scheme which would generate a comprehensive Australian longitudinal data set for people with severe and profound disability.

• Previous: Appendix I

[ top ]