OzSAGE is a multi-disciplinary network of Australian experts from a broad range of sectors relevant to the well-being of the Australian population during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

OzSAGE formed in response to the current Australian epidemic, meeting for the first time on August 16, 2021. In the midst of many competing expert opinions, OzSAGE offers well-researched and robustly debated independent expert advice. We do this to inform the common national goal of achieving an exit strategy from this pandemic with the best possible health, social and economic outcomes. Members of OzSAGE are not paid and provide their time without remuneration and without a political agenda.

Members have experience, expertise and frontline roles in public health, infectious diseases, virology, immunology, epidemiology, vaccinology, clinical disciplines (intensive care, emergency medicine, infectious diseases, paediatrics, paediatric intensive care, occupational medicine, mental health, allied health, and multiple other subspecialities), Aboriginal health, engineering, built environment, occupational hygiene, laboratory science, basic science, research and development, behavioural and social science, multicultural engagement, communications, law, computer and data science, public policy and economics.

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Treatable Traits is a consortium of world-renowned clinicians, researchers and key respiratory organisations who are collaborating to improve healthcare outcomes for people with chronic airway diseases. There is a substantial global health burden from chronic airway diseases, particularly severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The disease burden of COPD has remained largely unchanged for the past 10 years and improvements in asthma control have stalled over that period of time. In response to this problem, there are calls for a new approach for chronic airway disease management called Treatable Traits. 

The Centre of Excellence in Treatable Traits will generate new knowledge to support the Treatable Traits approach and ensure translation into practice through our innovative research and education programmes.

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They will achieve this by:

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• Developing new knowledge by testing the impact of Treatable Traits on patient outcomes and identifying the related economic benefits

• Developing implementation tools and translating new models of care and technology into policy and practice

• Training the next generation of respiratory clinical researchers by offering world-class opportunities

• Developing and enhancing national and international collaborations for cutting edge research.

The Healthy Housing CRE is a 5-year project funded by the NHMRC from 2020-2025. It involves over 20 researchers from across Australia and the world. A quarter of Australia’s disease burden is comprised of cardiovascular disease, COPD, anxiety, depression, asthma, falls and injury. All such health issues have been at least partly attributed to housing. While other high-income countries have actively and successfully used housing to reduce their burden of disease, Australian policy and research has failed to bridge disciplinary silos.

Furthermore, housing interventions in Australia have only inadvertently improved health, missing the opportunity for evidenced based housing improvement for efficient health gain. Across the disciplinary boundaries, this innovative Centre of Research Excellence brings together the leaders capable of addressing these issues. It will be the first and only health-focussed Centre internationally to span healthy housing for Indigenous Australians, people in need and the growing population of rental housing tenants. Through the collaboration and connections encapsulated in the Centre, this 5-year project will deliver new knowledge through three interconnected research streams that focus on housing over the life course, quantifying the health gains of housing focused interventions and measuring and responding to the complexity of exposure to housing.

The Centre for Research Excellence will leave a legacy of creating the right conditions to answer emerging questions in a timely way - clearly demonstrating the benefits of interdisciplinary applied research that is necessary for successful integrated knowledge translation (e.g. understanding the health benefits of improving public housing) whilst fostering the creation of the next generation of healthy housing researchers equipped with knowledge and partnerships to take the Centre’s research impact forward​.