About Us

Barwon Health has a thriving culture of curiosity, innovation and evidence-based practice. We are passionate about the integration of clinical care and research, in collaboration with our community, to solve important problems.

Each of our clinical departments has an established and productive research program. Together we work across the life course, from pregnancy to aged care, to create and translate new knowledge.

Our partnership with  Deakin University is crucial. It enables us to assemble interdisciplinary teams with skills in nursing, allied health, medicine, health services, laboratory sciences, biostatistics, computer sciences, public health, policy and beyond. This partnership is well illustrated by IMPACT, one of the most renowned mental health research programs in the world, while the Change to Improve Mental Health (CHIME) initiative will integrate research and clinical services to drive a continuous cycle of improvements in person-centred care.

Provision of cradle to grave care to a large and engaged community has enabled us to establish some of the most important cohort studies in the world. Projects such as the Barwon Infant Study (BIS) and the Geelong Osteoporosis Study (GOS) combine ‘people power’ with cutting-edge laboratory science to identify new targets for prevention and treatment of childhood allergic diseases through to frailty among the aging.

Similarly, our infectious diseases program leverages our setting to address population health responses to challenges including Mycobacterium Ulcerans, Hepatitis C, and SARSCov-2, as well as in-hospital conditions such as Staphylococcus infections. An exciting development in this space is the establishment of the Centre for Innovation in Infectious Diseases and Immunology Research (CIIDIR).

Barwon Health’s established clinical trials groups drive a culture of enquiry and evidence-based care. The generous support of the Costa family has enabled establishment of the Adrian Costa Clinical Trials Centre that will expand and diversify access to cutting edge treatments.

Partnership with our community is crucial. Barwon Health will invest in systems that enable consumer input across the research journey. Our research goes beyond scientific insights, to inform how we partner with people to improve their health and wellbeing – a philosophy embodied by our iValidate program which drives innovations and excellence in person-centred end-of-life care.

Barwon Health's vision for research is about being sufficiently ambitious and deliberate to ensure our efforts are both locally relevant and internationally important. The coming decade will see us build on a strong history of community participation. We need everyone’s help to identify the most important research questions, to then answer them, and ultimately to translate our new knowledge into better outcomes. We’d love everyone to be a part of the journey.

Professor Peter Vuillermin (MBBS BMedSci FRACP PhD)

Paediatrician | NHMRC Career Development Fellow
Director of Research, Barwon Health 
Chair in Medicine, Deakin University