NEXT SPARK AWARD

The award is designed to support early career researchers in health and medical sciences.  This initiative aims to bring bright ideas to life that benefit children and young people born prematurely and their families.

Expressions of interest open 4/8/25 and close 22/9/25 with finalists receiving individual mentoring in October to perfect their Pitch.  You are all invited to the live Pitch event which will take place at Mounts Bay Sailing Club on November 16.  Make a pledge to support the award and purchase your tickets for the pitch on the ‘Tickets’ link below.  Everyone in attendance will vote and the winner will take home the prize and most importantly have some resources to turn their Next Spark idea into an epic bonfire.

Huge thanks to Graham Hall and Clare Berry who have generously provided their time and expertise to help us bring the Next Spark Award to life.

📆 Sunday, 16 November 2025

🕰️ 4pm - 6pm

🎟️ One beverage on arrival and light refreshments

📍 Mounts Bay Sailing Club, Australia II Drive, Crawley *The function room is only accessible via stairs*

FROG study – Focused consumer Research priorities to improve Outcomes and Guide care for neonates with surgical conditions

Are you a parent or carer of a child who had major surgery as a newborn (within 1 month of birth), or a person with lived experience with major surgery as a newborn?

Please help us with a short survey. The survey is only open for people living in Australia and will be available until 16th September 2025. Previous work by our team has already identified a longlist of research ideas; now we need your help to select the ones that are the most important so that we can focus our research efforts on those.

The survey takes only 3-5 minutes to complete and is anonymous.

Parents, carers, and people with lived experience, please use this link to access our FROG study:

https://redcap.link/FROGConsumerPrioritisation

This will help us to ensure that our research is meaningful and acceptable to all our patients, their families, and clinicians alike. Let us work together to improve the lives of some of our most vulnerable children to give everyone the best chance to have a happy and healthy life.

FROG study – Focused consumer Research priorities to improve Outcomes and Guide care for neonates with surgical conditions

Fantastic resources for families

We’ve been working with our friends at The Kids to bring these fantastic resources to life. Designed to put critical information about lung health into the hands of parents of children born prematurely, or adults who were born preterm themselves. There are two great fact sheets along with a helpful worksheet to note down important information you can take along to any appointments with health care professionals. Resources are free and available to check out on The Kids website.