New Clinical Entrepreneurship Program to support skills growth for Australian healthcare professionals

Entrepreneurship and innovation in the Australian health sector is set for significant expansion, following the announcement of a new Clinical Entrepreneurship program for health professionals.

The Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program (CEP) – Pilot will be led by the University of Melbourne in partnership with the University of Western Australia and will be based on the highly successful United Kingdom NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Program which has been operating since 2016.

Head of the Melbourne Medical School, Professor John Prins, describes the Clinical Entrepreneurship Program (known as CEP) as an entrepreneurial workforce development program that aims to develop the innovation and commercialisation skills of Australia’s clinicians and healthcare professionals.

Starting September 2022, the CEP pilot program will deliver workshops and networking opportunities to provide a pathway to fulfill entrepreneurial vision while retaining a focus on clinical care.

“The 12-month program is open to healthcare professionals and is designed to help transform unmet market and clinical needs into a growing number of thriving new businesses and build a clinical entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Professor Prins says.

“The pilot CEP will be delivered in Victoria, Western Australia, and New South Wales, and several hospitals in these states have indicated strong interest in being involved. The pilots will be delivered in 2022 and 2023, with the vision for national implementation following a review.”

The CEP will be delivered by a growing consortium of more than 20 partners – which to date includes five major hospitals, clinical entrepreneur role models, hospital executive leaders, industry partners, professional bodies, the NHS CEP team, state government health departments, and highly experienced providers of innovation and entrepreneurial programs with dedicated healthcare expertise.

The universities of Melbourne and Western Australia were selected to deliver the pilot CEP by MTP Connect – a federal government agency tasked with accelerating the rate of growth of the medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical (MTP) sector in Australia.

It will be funded through the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and the Researcher Exchange and Development within Industry (REDI) program, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Health.

For more information: Alex White, Research, Innovation & Commercialisation, University of Melbourne