Celebrating a decade of collaborative funding leading to over $10 million committed to ground-breaking research

Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon Mark Butler MP today announced the successful grant recipients to receive funding for innovative cancer research through the 2023 round of the Cancer Australia Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme (PdCCRS).

The Kids’ Cancer Project’s commitment to the PdCCRS allows funding of cancer research projects which are outcomes and impact-focused, translatable into clinical practice or further research and have fostered consumer participation in cancer research, from design to implementation. After a decade of funding through this collaborative program The Kids’ Cancer Project's commitment of over $3.8 million has seen over $10 million invested into innovative childhood cancer research.

The Kids’ Cancer Project is one of four funding partners co-funding $1,786,751 into three childhood cancer research projects through the PdCCRS scheme. Other Funding Partners include Cancer Australia, My Room Children’s Cancer and the Australian Lions Childhood Cancer Research Foundation. 

The Kids’ Cancer Project will invest over $757,000 during this round - with Funding Partners contributing over $957,000 - ensuring all our donors’ contributions are matched dollar for dollar.

Mr Butler said: "We are thrilled to support these pioneering research projects that hold the potential to make substantial contributions to cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and care. We value our funding partners and their contributions, who, along with the government, recognise and champion the pivotal role of cancer research in improving patient outcomes."

Owen Finegan, CEO of The Kids’ Cancer Project, said he has been thrilled to collaborate with Cancer Australia and other Funding Partners for over a decade and to be celebrating this year by announcing three more ground-breaking research studies to discover better treatments for children diagnosed with cancer. Owen explains:

By partnering with Cancer Australia and other like-minded organisations through the PdCCRS, we are able to drive the gifts of our donors further – funding more studies for longer...The Kids’ Cancer Project is proud that after our recent $7.9 million commitment to 18 fellowships and seven PhD students that, through support of our donors, we are able to add three new scientists to our portfolio of research projects through the latest round of Cancer Australia’s PdCCRS...We look forward to sharing the impact of the work of Dr Kate Vandyke, Professor Matt Dun and Professor Richard D’Andrea with our community in the coming years.

Successful applicants of funding partnered with The Kids’ Cancer Project are: