Each year in Victoria we support:
We also provide support to research groups in the Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium, Victorian Cancer Biobank and the Victorian arm of Cancer Australia.
On average, our Cancer Epidemiology Centre and Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer produce at least one research paper in a peer-reviewed journal each week.
Together with papers produced by external research that we've supported, these amount to around 200 scientific journal publications each year - a significant addition to the international pool of cancer knowledge.
We also house the Victorian Cancer Registry, which records every cancer diagnosis in the state. This information alone is vitally important for program planning and research, not only at the Cancer Council but in the state and nationally.
Over the past 70 years, our investment in cancer research has paid off handsomely. In the case of the work of Professor Don Metcalf, it has paid off spectacularly. Over 4 million patients worldwide have received his discovery, G-CSF, as part of their treatment.
In 1999, the Australian National University undertook an independent study to quantify the research ‘impact’ achieved by agencies in Australia that fund medical research.
Using standard bibliometric methods to establish the impact of research funds provided to grantees, the ANU study identified the Cancer Council as the agency which achieved the greatest impact from the research it had funded (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council were also included in the analysis).
Source: Butler, L. Funding Australia’s basic biomedical research of 1993 and 1994, Medical Journal of Australia 1999, vol 171, pp 629–33.
