MWC Impact and Outcomes statement

The MWC has stated the following strategic impacts and outcomes as part of the 2021-2024 contract with the Tertiary Education Commission.

For more detail see the 2021-2024 MWC plan or the 2025-2028 plan which is now available.

MWC Impacts:

• Improved long term health outcomes and well-being of New Zealanders, particularly for Māori and Pacific Peoples
• Diverse range of young scientists with advanced capability and a greater awareness of cultural, economic, and community aspects of biomedical research
• Economic benefits for the country including growth in the investment and performance of the therapeutics industry in New Zealand
• Improved science education for school children, particularly in Māori and Pacific communities
• New Zealand scientists as good global citizens in contributing to global health outcomes

MWC Outcomes:

• Development of better ways of treating disease using inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations, biomedical and translational research, and facilitating clinical trials supported by relevant diagnostic biomarkers
• Development of young scientists who have skills in a broader range of experience and mentorship than would traditionally have been available 
• A new generation of Māori and Pacific researchers in biomedical sciences to lead future activities with these communities who can collaborate safely with culturally aware tauiwi researchers
• Validation of new drug targets, development of new drugs or strategies for using drugs, development of diagnostics and vaccines and the development of clinical trials to test efficacy of such strategies
• Promotion of a greater understanding of biomedical science in the New Zealand community, particularly in schools and Māori and Pacific communities
• Enhancement of the scientific partnership between New Zealand and other nations that leads to increased opportunities for New Zealand researchers

Executive summary:

The Maurice Wilkins Centre (MWC) is a vibrant organisation that brings together the best research talent across New Zealand to focus on understanding and managing the major diseases affecting New Zealanders today. Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) funding has enabled the Centre to grow into a dynamic, highly productive, large-scale collaborative network of researchers across New Zealand, since its establishment in 2002.  A major achievement of the MWC is that it has broken down traditional barriers between institutions and disciplines and developed high-functioning, collaborative teams across different institutions. These teams encompass a wide range of capabilities in biomedicine, chemistry, and clinical research, and are further boosted by collaborative links to major research institutions globally.  This is an interactive model unique to New Zealand and one that creates excellent synergies that maximise the productivity of the country’s researchers.

The MWC effectively performs ambitious research that spans from basic discovery through to translational outcomes. The Centre has developed a balance of internationally competitive large-scale research programmes combined with a series of innovative, cutting edge, pilot projects to foster new research directions. MWC also leads the development of important new resources and data sets that will be of ongoing use to researchers and patients.

The Centre’s goals are to (i) build on the current network of researchers to use multi-disciplinary approaches and teams to expedite the development of new knowledge about mechanisms driving a range of diseases of importance to this country and, (ii) empower its extensive collective expertise in the development of therapeutic advances by linking with its rapidly developing networks of clinical researchers to translate these into new patient-centric approaches to prevent, diagnose or treat the target diseases. 

The MWC is an instigator of new research directions and aims to maximise the effectiveness of its collaborative research teams and to potentiate the outputs of its research by synergising with and leveraging other funding mechanisms. The MWC will also use its position as a national research network to support and develop the future research workforce from school outreach through postgraduate studentships and supporting the career development of early career researchers (ECRs).  Specifically, the MWC wants to engage in activities that will enable diversity in this future workforce in terms of gender balance and in terms of Māori and Pacific. Going forward the MWC will focus on further boosting its ability to have impact on the health of New Zealanders by greatly expanding and strengthening the interactions of its researchers with clinicians and with communities, particularly Māori and Pacific communities.