The Mater Research Support Centre (MRSC) was formed following a workshop in February 2003 on how research activities on the Mater Campus could be enhanced. A small budget was allocated and the staff working in the Centre for Clinical Studies (CCS) of Mater Mothers' Hospital were incorporated into the MRSC. Prof Allan Chang was appointed the Director.
The MRSC Team commenced work in July 2003. Very quickly we had quite a number of people seeking advice from our staff, as well as inviting them to join collaborating projects.
The main thrust of our activities to date, however, has been towards building an infra-structure of resources and communication to enable us to provide effective assistance to the Mater community, when required.
We have now completed the first stage of our development, having acquired the statistical and database resources, and built an Intranet to make these resources available to the Mater community.
Our next objective is to develop educational programs for the research neophytes, and to introduce specialised methods that may be useful for some clinical research situations.
As MRSC will undergo continuing development in the near future, we anticipate that there will be many changes and that our resources will increase. We intend, therefore, to put a newsletter up at intervals to update the Mater community on the new developments that have occurred and other facilities and services that have become available.