The Foundation was inaugurated on 13 January 1984 with the purpose of promoting, encouraging and advancing medical research in Australia. This has been achieved through the provision of over $48.5 million in grants, scholarships, fellowships, symposia and awards, to date.
Throughout its history, it has filled a niche within the funding landscape by targeting fields of research that do not attract high levels of funding from Federal grants and other high-profile funding bodies
The original five directors included Mrs Rebecca Lillian Cooper, who in her Will of the same date endowed the Foundation. The other directors were the late Mr Kevin Cahill who was her solicitor, the late Mr Al Rosenstrauss OAM, her real estate and business manager, Dr Nick Gregory, her GP and Dr Tom Cromer, an endocrinologist. Dr Cromer has served as a director ever since, and is the Foundation’s current chairman.
Mrs Cooper died on 29 April 1984, bequeathing one hundred and five properties to the Foundation. The majority of these properties comprised terrace houses scattered through the inner suburbs of Sydney. They were predominantly located in the prestigious suburbs of Woollahra, Paddington and Bondi Junction. In 2004, the Foundation’s original endowment was supplemented when John Haddon bequeathed his estate to the Foundation; and again in 2020 when Hugh “David” Vaughan Lewis bequeathed his estate to the Foundation. Both shared Al Rosenstrauss’ interest in photography and became friends with him through their association with photography groups. They both admired what the Foundation was doing and wanted to “help out”.
The annual income of the Foundation has steadily increased from below $80,000 in 1984 to more than $3 million per annum at present. Over the years, a large portion of the Foundation’s income has been used to upgrade the properties which were inherited in very poor repair, with many being dilapidated and derelict. With the accelerated income return that this work provides and the determination of the current Directors to broaden the Foundation’s asset base, the Foundation is taking steps to ensure that a larger proportion of our income will be available to the medical research fraternity.
In 2026, over $5.6 million has been allocated towards fellowships; a far cry from its humble beginnings in 1984, when two grants were awarded totalling $9,640. Seven years after the Foundation was established, the Foundation had awarded a cumulative total exceeding $1million in grants and in 2012 granted over $1 million per annum for the first time. In 2019, annual funding was doubled again to a total of $3 million per annum.
Over the years, the Foundation has broadened its areas of funding support. One of the Foundation’s early major grants totalled $250,000, given by instalments, for the establishment of the Rebecca L Cooper Laboratories at the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria (known today as the Molecular Psychiatry Laboratory at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health). At the time, schizophrenia research was very underfunded. The most recent addition to our funding categories is Dermatology (excluding Skin Cancer).
Since 2015, grant and fellowship applications have been peer reviewed by a Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC). Having experts review applications helps to ensure that the Foundation’s funds are directed towards high quality research.
To find out more about the Foundation’s current Funding Schemes, click here.