2025 Regional Research Symposium

A draft program and tickets are available here. 

Contact the AWH Research Office for further information.

Research Round Table CoP July meeting

The next Research Round Table Community of Practice meeting will be held TOMORROW Wednesday 23rd July.

This month we will hear about Public Health research from Dr Marina Van Leeuwen and Dr Anthony Zheng. 

May 2025 | We heard from a line-up of our peadiatrics team and recent UNSW medical students about their contribution to local paediatrics research.

March 2025 | We heard from Dr Stacey Rich, who gave a wonderful presentation on qualitative and co-design research. Research Office staff touched on how to involve consumers in research at our service.

See the Research Office PD webpage to view recordings of past Research Round Table meetings.

Fake papers and predatory journals

Paper mills, fraudulent or fake papers and predatory journals are all of great concern to health and medical science, impacting the integrity of the scientific method and patient care.

Below are some resources to help you identify fake papers and predatory journals.

The Royal Melbourne Hospital Library has created a library guide on fake research here.

The REAPPRAISED checklist can be used to help readers, journal editors and anyone else, assess whether a paper has flaws that call its integrity into question.

Paper-checking tools include Signals, by London-based Research Signals, and Clear Skies’ Papermill Alarm.

This paper offers a toolkit for detecting fallacious calls for papers from potential predatory journals.

If you are undertaking a review of the literature, it might be helpful to refer to this Cochrane article discussing why systematic reviewers should lead the charge for research integrity, and the Cochrane policy on managing potentially problematic studies. 

Upcoming conferences

• August 11-14 2025
• Adelaide Convention Centre

10th Rural and Remote Health Scientific Symposium

• Theme: ‘Research from the heart – shaping rural & remote health futures’.
• 8–9 October 2025
• Alice Springs

AWH/UNSW Regional Research Symposium

• Theme ‘Stronger Together: Advancing Regional Research Through Collaboration’.
• 14 October 2025
• The Cube, Wodonga

For information on other conference, visit the National Rural Health Alliance website.

Recent AWH publications

AWH author/s: Craig MacLeod

Title and link: Identification of Clinical Variation of Interest in Standard of Care Practice in a Statewide Bench Marking Audit of Brain Tumor Patient Care

AWH author/s: Amy Vaccaro and Kasie Harrison

Title and link: Patients' Perceptions About the Quality of Nurses' Communication During Acute Hospitalisation: A Cross-Sectional Survey

AWH author/s: Anthony Zheng

Title and link: Prevalence of Murray Valley encephalitis virus antibodies in northern Victoria following the 2023 outbreak: a cross-sectional serological survey

AWH author/s: Lehashenee Thirukumar, Robin Sia, Justin Jackson and John Burston

Title and link: Aseptic meningitis in the setting of giant cell arteritis (GCA): a case report

AWH author/s: Rosa Miranda Thais

Title and link: Outcomes of laparoscopic and open inguinal hernia repair in overweight and obese patients

PD opportunities

From Health Education and Training

Applying an impact lens to health and medical research, will be held on Wednesday 27 August 2025, 6.00pm - 7.00pm (AEST).

The session will focus on:
· recent developments in research policy
· an overview of the FAIT framework
· the value that an impact lens adds to the research process
· a summary of the application of FAIT to DAP+ including some exemplar outputs
· a reflection of key learnings along the way

Recordings from previous webinars can be accessed on the HETI website here.

From the University of NSW

Regional Research Collaboration Forum, held in Port Macquarie on Wednesday 13th August 2025

2025 Cancer & Immunology Ideas Forum,  held at the NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre on 19 September 2025

Taylor and Francis podcast

🔊 Listen now: “How to Make Your Research More Visible”

This episode offers actionable insights on:
• Reaching wider audiences
• Navigating media outreach
• Building your research profile online.

To celebrate NAIDOC Week just gone, Wiley has opened a curated collection of journal articles by First Nations researchers - including seminal papers from our Australian Journal of Rural Health.
Read articles on cultural safety, community controlled care and land based healing. Free until 31 July.

Research Office Reminders

New project submission dates

Draft protocols for new projects are submitted to the Research Office at least one month before submission is due to the AWH Human Research Ethics Committee (AWHHREC). After review by the Research Office, researchers will be guided through submission to the AWHHREC on ERM. 

Want to connect with a metro researcher?

Connecting with an experienced researcher at the University of New South Wales could help turn your research ideas into reality, or your regional data could help round out a metro-based project.

Check out this list of UNSW researchers that are interested in collaborating with regional clinicians.

Contact | UNSW/AWH Research Coordinator, Marina Van Leeuwen (m.vanleeuwen@unsw.edu.au) if you are interested.