About the Health Research Council

The Health Research Council's (HRC's) mission is ‘benefiting New Zealand through health research’, with a vision of improved health and quality of life for all.

The HRC invests in a broad range of health research on issues of importance to New Zealand. It also supports the development of research careers so that New Zealand can have a well-trained workforce in the future.

The HRC also contributes to maintaining an ethical and safe health research environment. Its committees:

  • provide advice on gene technology
  • accredit health and disability ethics committees and institutional ethics committees
  • monitor the safety of large clinical trials and
  • review applications to use new medicines in trials.

The HRC was established under the Health Research Council Act 1990 and is responsible to the Minister of Health. Its major funding agreement is through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Budget funding

In Budget 2016, the Government announced it would invest an extra $97 million over 4 years in health research. This brings the total funding available through this mechanism for the HRC to $87.2 million in 2016/17, rising to $120.2 million per annum in 2019/20.

HRC also receives some funding from us through the Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund and the Catalyst Fund.

Visit the HRC website for more information about funded research(external link).