Clinician Researcher Academy

The QIMR Berghofer-Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Clinician Researcher Academy supports the development and coordination of research collaborations, and the career development, professional development, academic training and mentorship of clinician researchers.

A clinician researcher is a registered clinician, still working in clinical practice, but also maintaining an active clinical or preclinical research program.

How are we achieving this?

Our Academy is a partnership with the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Metro North Health and Queensland Health to co-design and integrate research training and collaborations with the health workforce.

Why is this important?

Research and innovation are critical for a high-performing health system, to ensure the future health and wellbeing of Queenslanders. Clinician researchers have a key role in bridging the gap between clinical practice and research, driving the application of new discoveries to real-world healthcare settings.

What are our focus areas?

Building research career development opportunities that can be combined with clinical practice

  • Joint academic and clinical appointments between QIMR Berghofer and Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.
  • Junior doctor research rotations to build ground-up collaborations and a clinical higher degree research pipeline.
  • Partner research-orientated clinicians with world-class researchers to advance clinical questions and ideas with research excellence.
  • Training and resources for research, innovation and leadership skills development.


Building integration between researchers and the health workforce

  • Enhance research collaborations that leverage existing Queensland Health capabilities and infrastructure.
  • Structured engagement opportunities including joint workshops and research forums.
  • Contribute to health staff orientation and teaching sessions.
  • Support the retention of clinician researchers actively engaged in research.


What does QIMR Berghofer offer clinician researchers?

  • Access to cutting-edge resources, renowned scientists and key networks.
  • Collaborative research opportunities.
  • Access to our world-leading Scientific Services. These include genome informatics, statistics and research design, research software, programming and high-performance computing, metabolomics, sample processing, sequencing and NATA-accredited flow cytometry, and histology.
  • Training by our Scientific Services teams, in the use of specialist equipment, techniques and research methodologies.
  • Institute seminars. The Institute offers a weekly Faculty seminar series and regularly hosts national and international experts as guest speakers who share the latest research findings and methods across a range of health and medical research topics.
  • A professional team to support higher degree research students, to assist in navigating the PhD journey, mentoring advice and skill development to pursue a research career with the highest levels of integrity and scholarship.
  • A skilled team to support grant and fellowship pitching, development and submission.

What would you like to explore?

  • Participate as a clinician researcher.
  • Bring your expertise as a partner.
  • Support the future health and well-being of Queenslanders by funding clinician researchers.

For more information, please contact the Academy’s Clinical Director, Professor Elizabeth Powell:

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Professor Elizabeth Powell

Clinical Director

Elizabeth Powell

Professor Powell is the Institute’s inaugural Clinical Director. She is a Hepatologist and Senior Staff Specialist in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. She is also Director of the network Centre for Liver Disease Research and Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland. Professor Powell oversees the Institute’s Clinician Researcher strategy and Academy. She promotes the career development, professional development, academic training, and mentorship for clinician researchers. She works to facilitate meaningful partnerships between QIMR Berghofer and research-orientated clinicians.

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