Top 10 Research & Translation Priorities for Australia

An independent process was conducted to identify the Top 10 research and translation priorities for Australia. The James Lind Alliance-aligned priority setting process included:

• Engaging a consultant from the James Lind Alliance in the UK to undertake the process

• Establishing a representative advisory committee, including a consumer, carer, clinician and researcher representative. The role of the Co-Design Advisory Committee was to monitor the process, provide plain language recommendations, participate in developing each element of the process and observe the workshop. From there:

• 1210 issues, identified during national consultations for the development of the Strategy, were developed into plain language questions – or, areas of evidence uncertainty that, if answered by research, would transform people’s lives and the health care journey.

• These questions were coded into topic areas, they were categorised, merged, summarised and checked against existing research evidence to ensure that they had not already been answered by the existing knowledge base.

• 59 Questions were then taken to a national online survey, approved by the Sydney Local Health District Human Research & Ethics Committee, which established an interim priority list. 160 consumers, 79 carers, 140 clinicians and 52 researchers responded to the survey, selecting their own ‘Top 10’.

• The JLA consultant reviewed the survey responses and the top 16 questions were reviewed during a 2x workshop series, where equal numbers of consumers, carers, clinicians and researchers came to a consensus around the current priority areas for research and translation.

• The ‘Top 10’ were then ‘translated’ by researchers and the research community into technical research questions.