Strengthening fundamental and priority-driven research. While this is a valuable proposal, it should not be carried out at the expense of small projects which may be initiated and managed by individual researchers. These projects are often innovative and cost-effective, and many of the most significant achievements in medical research have been made by small groups led by individual investigators.
Funding needs to be maintained for small groups as well as for large ones.
Maximising Government resources - public sector. This assumption is not correct. Quality, not quantity, should be the criterion. The universities provide undergraduate training to all our medical researchers, and postgraduate training to most of them. However, Government funding of universities and academics is declining in real terms and has reached crisis point.