New grants to be awarded

We are pleased to announce that our next round of seed grants and site support grants will be announced shortly. In this call we are looking to fund a further five $50,000 awards, with the intention of supporting at least one more hospital to become an active stroke trial recruitment site (joining Townsville, Alice Springs and the Charles Gairdner sites that have already been awarded CRE support). Seed grants are primarily designed for early and mid-career researchers to pilot the most promising new treatments for stroke, whose results would leverage large scale competitive funding.

We will announce the opening of this call soon, so keep an eye out for email notification and our website/

Lived Experience

Our Lived Experience Advisory Group are offering a unique opportunity during the Australia and New Zealand Stroke Organisation Conference in Brisbane in August 2026. Researchers are now required to co-design their research with those with lived experience but how do you start this process? The CRE is delighted to announce our

Lived Experience Speed Consults, these will be offered for the first time at ANZSOC 2026 on Wednesday 19 August, 10:30am-12:00pm.

This will provide a fantastic opportunity for researchers to connect directly with people with lived experience of stroke.

Researchers are invited to submit an expression of interest to participate in a 15- or 30- minute consultation session.

Submit your expression of interest

Why take part?

Whether your research idea is early-stage or well developed, the sessions are designed to support researchers to:

• Explore meaningful ways to involve people with lived experience
• Ask questions and gain insights from people with lived experience of stroke
• Engage early, helping to strengthen future funding applications and research impact
• Strengthen language and accessible participant materials
• Test and refine research ideas and questions
• Get input on study design and feasibility
• Build relationships for future collaboration

What to expect?

• Small group conversations with people with lived experience of stroke
• Honest, practical feedback you can immediately apply
• A supportive space – no need to have everything figured out

‍Researchers can choose between:

• 15-minute session for quick idea testing or to have a question answered
• 30-minute session for deeper discussion

How it works

1.      Submit an expression of interest telling us about your research idea or focus

2.      We’ll match you with a small group of people with relevant lived experience

3.      You’ll be allocated a 15- or 30-minute session on Wednesday 19 August between 10:30am-12:00pm

4.      Join your Speed Consult session during the conference.

Thanks to our Lived Experience CRE members and Simone Russell and Sophie Weaver (our CRE Lived Experience partners at the Stroke Foundation) for this amazing initiative.

Quality in Acute Stroke Care (QASC) Australasia Trial

This cluster randomised controlled trial aims to evaluate different levels of intensity of external remote facilitation to improve Fever, Sugar, Swallow (FeSS) Protocol uptake for patients with stroke in Australian and New Zealand hospitals. There are a total of 50 Australian and 8 New Zealand hospitals participating in the trial. Significant progress has been achieved, with 43 Australian and 6 New Zealand hospitals having completed the post-intervention phase. The remaining hospitals are expected to complete this phase by 31 July 2026. A process evaluation, comprising interviews and focus groups with staff from participating hospitals, is planned to commence in October 2026.

Registry of Stroke Care Quality (RES-Q) Feedback Prompt Trial

This international registry-based randomised controlled trial aims to evaluate the effect of a prompt-based (‘nudge’) intervention on report generation, dashboard use and stroke care processes. The trial includes 1,454 hospitals across Europe, Australasia, Africa, Central and South-East Asia, and South America are participating in the trial. Data analysis is underway with scientific abstracts submitted to the 2026 Australian and New Zealand Stroke Organisation Conference (accepted as a Late Breaking Poster) and the 2026 World Stroke Congress (results pending). 

Fever, Hyperglycaemia (Sugar), Swallow (FeSS) clinical guidelines adherence: analysis of national audit data and stroke registry data

The objectives of this cross sectional observational study are: (i) to examine uptake of the optional FeSS dataset in AuSCR; (ii) to compare FeSS Protocol adherence for hospitals that contribute FeSS data into AuSCR and in the 2021 and 2023 national stroke audits compared to hospitals that do not contribute FeSS data into AuSCR and (iii) to examine FeSS Protocol adherence over time for hospitals that contribute FeSS data into AuSCR. Dr Monica Rückholdt (Senior Lecturer, ACU) working with the Nursing Research Institute was accepted as a new CRE affiliate and is working on this project. Data analysis is underway with scientific abstracts submitted to the 2026 Australian and New Zealand Stroke Organisation Conference (accepted as a Lightning Presentation) and the Implementation Science Health Conference Australia 2026 (results pending).

At our Monash University/Australian Stroke Clinical Registry (AuSCR) hub of the CRE we are running projects to better understand how to improve the quality of stroke care and support the translation of evidence into routine practice:

Scoping review of clinical quality dashboards
We are currently completing a scoping review to identify the features, implementation strategies and impacts of clinical quality dashboards used in healthcare. The findings will inform the future design, implementation and evaluation of dashboards to support high-quality stroke care (https://doi:10.17605/OSF/JGNFK)

Evaluation of the AuSCR dashboards
This is work in progress. We have completed a national survey of AuSCR dashboard users, with responses from clinicians and quality improvement leaders across Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia (N=18). The survey has provided valuable insights into which dashboard features are most useful and the factors influencing their use and impact. We are now commencing interviews to gain more detailed perspectives ahead of the rollout of the new Data Platform (AHDaPt) later this month.

If you have experience using the AuSCR dashboards and would like to contribute to the evaluation, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact the study coordinator, Dr Tara Purvis (tara.purvis@monash.edu).

Understanding the broader quality improvement landscape
We are also mapping current stroke quality improvement initiatives across Australia to better understand how national, state and local programs and projects collectively contribute to improving evidence-based care. This work will help us understand the cumulative impact of multiple initiatives and identify where future efforts may have the greatest benefit.

Supporting impact evaluation and program monitoring

In additional we are contributing to the CRE impact tracking and setting up a detailed data capture approach based on a Program Logic model for Learning Health System Workstream 2.

CRE Events

CRE Clinical Trial and Grantsmanship Courses

We were delighted with the success of the clinical trial course in Perth in March this year. Thanks to the WA State government and the Clinical Trials Enabling Platform (Prof Chris Reid) for financial support in running this. Few such courses occur in WA, and it was great to see the attendance from the 42 delegates, 18 Faculty and 7 people with lived experience.

On the Saturday morning after the Clinical Trials course, the CRE ran an introductory Grantsmanship course with 11 attendees. This again proved to be highly successful and entertaining (we particularly enjoyed the trial pitch session). This will be repeated in an expanded form next year (see below).

Save the dates

2^nd Clinical Trial Course (Coogee Beach, Sydney, 8-9^th December 2026)

Following the success of our Clinical Trials and Grantsmanship courses in Perth we are pleased to announce the dates of the second Clinical Trial Course that will be held at Coogee Beach, Sydney 8-9^th December 2026. Learn everything you need to know about stroke trials from the people who run them in Australia. We will be advertising this event shortly, so keep a look out and tell your colleagues.

2^nd Grantsmanship Course (Melbourne, 1st-2^nd March 2027)

Following feedback about our Grantsmanship Course we have decided to run a one and a half day course in Melbourne 1-2^nd March 2027. This expands on the half day course offered in Perth and, crucially, the CRE will fund the airfare and hotel accommodation of up to 15 early and mid-career researchers to attend. This support will include domestic airfares, hotel accommodation and meals but will require an application as places are limited. The main requirement for support will be a need to be a CRE affiliate (see our website for details on how to achieve affiliate status) and a draft grant application for a stroke trial, so please start thinking about your proposal. Further details will be available soon.