IHMRI CEO David Adams said he resigned after funding from UOW was 'reduced to zero'

UOW last week said it would wind up the IHMRI, launched with much fanfare in 2008 and a new $30 million building at the university's Keiraville Campus.

Professor David Adams, who was CEO and executive director of IHMRI until November last year, said he had not been consulted about funding being cut, which was announced in an email from Vice-Chancellor Patricia Davidson in June 2022, to start that September.

And he said UOW may have to pay back at least some of the $15 million in NSW Government funding for the Gerard Sutton Building because it was conditional on IHMRI being its tenant.

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UOW denies this, saying the continued presence of medical research in the building would be enough.

In an interview with the Mercury after the winding up decision was announced, Professor Adams said he was disappointed with how the institute came to an end.

"I think both the representatives of the local health district and the university felt that IHMRI was not fulfilling their aims - and it really wasn't clear exactly what was wanted there," he said.

"But in the end they controlled the board and at that time, made the decision."

The UOW funding, which was about $6 million per year, was cut while the rent IHMRI had been paying for the use of the building - $2.6 million - was also stopped.

Professor Adams said researchers, independent board members, and himself were not consulted before the funding cut was announced by Professor Davidson.

"I think the major thing is I think there was just a basic lack of consultation with myself or the other independents on the board, or with the researchers in the institute," he said.

"One of the things I find is regrettable in the what they released [about the wind-up] is its complete lack of recognition of the people have contributed to building IHMRI, to get it off the ground, promote its position and to enhance health and medical research in the region.

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"I think that it's really the community that suffers.

"There are only, you know, roughly I think 14 or 15 independent medical research institutes in NSW - 13 of those in Sydney, two outside. One is the the Hunter Medical Research Institute, and the other one was Illawarra."

Professor Adams said research centres had helped transform the University of Wollongong.

"Research institutes, the role that they play is really raising the profile of the research that's going on," he said.

"So the institute can actually play a role in terms of attracting some of the best researchers to the to the university."

UOW will not say it on the record but it's understood UOW had wanted IHMRI to become financially self-sufficient by this stage, and decided it was not meeting this goal.

A university spokesman said the decision to cut funding was made by the IHMRI board, not just UOW.

"The university's decision in 2022 to reduce the subsidy provided to IHMRI was made to ensure the university could maintain financial sustainability of its broader operations while maintaining health and medical research to the greatest extent possible," he said.

Professor Adams estimated there had been 150 students receive their PhD working in the IHMRI building between 2012 and 2022.

He said an intent to move towards more clinical trials had not come to fruition.

"I think it's a major loss to the Illawarra community given what it was capable of, and what it did contribute," he said.

IHMRI has been a prominent and lauded part of UOW's growth in recent years.

It was the recipient of millions of dollars raised by the Saving Chloe Saxby appeal, to investigate Vanishing White Matter disease in the name of the brave Woonona girl who died of the disease in 2020 aged 12.

It embraced the work of world renowned molecular biologist Dr Justin Yerbery, the former Illawarra Hawks player whose work on motor neurone disease as continued even as MND has gripped him tighter.

In 2018 Australia's chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel visited the university to open IHMRI's electrophysiology laboratory, unwrapping a "first of its kind" robot that could enable up to 8000 drug experiments a day.

The UOW spokesman research would continue, just under the faculties rather than the research centre.

"IHMRI's closure does not in any way diminish UOW's ongoing commitment to supporting and fostering health and medical research and to improving health outcomes in the communities we serve," he said.

"The research undertaken by UOW researchers will continue, unaffected by IHMRI's closure.

"The researchers will continue to work on the same projects with the same teams and in the same laboratories and clinical facilities. The only difference is that the research will be overseen and supported by the researcher's UOW schools and faculties rather than by IHMRI."

Chief operating officer Kara Lamond stayed on to help manage the transition but when she left in January it was clear IHMRI's days were numbered. She declined to comment on the winding up.