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To boost its research capabilities, The University of Queensland will invest $50 million over seven years to manage the most urgent health and medical challenges at the same time and to develop economic opportunities. Seven programs have been chosen for backing as part of UQ's Health Research Accelerator (HERA), varying from digital health to infectious diseases, mRNA vaccines, and health workforce optimization.

Professor Deborah Terry, UQ Vice-Chancellor stated that a new model had been designed to identify that a favorably cooperative system was required in order to find solutions to challenges that have an enormous influence on wellbeing. Professor Terry added that these challenges are complex and significant, but they are not unconquerable.

Health Research Accelerator (HERA) offers the scale and intensity required to make genuine development by building a connection with the University's people and capabilities with 78 industry, government, and other key partners. The key supporters include hospital and health services, universities and research institutes, Queensland Health, biotechnology enterprises, and not-for-profit organization.

Professor Geoff McColl commented that a significant focus would be recruiting outstanding researchers where expertise will improve the current capacity of UQ and its partners. He also said that where there is a gap in existing knowledge and skills specific to the research project or a challenge they are addressing, bringing in the necessary capability will boost them to remove that barrier. The HERA projects will enable researchers to maintain the assertiveness of focus and construct the multi-disciplinary collaborations required for developments that will shift the needle in health outcomes.