Health librarians have received significant recognition in the 2025 NHMRC Good Institutional Practice Guide, a national framework designed to foster a research culture that supports high-quality, responsible research.
This inclusion follows a successful ALIA Health Libraries Australia (HLA) submission to the NHMRC in 2024, and marks a major step forward in raising the profile of health librarians within biomedical research institutions.
The guide highlights the critical role librarians play in supporting researchers, with several key references:
- “Appoint qualified librarians to advise and support researchers across a range of topics including the scholarly information life cycle, research metrics, open science practices and data management.” - pg 16
- “Provide infrastructure for supporting responsible research practices, such as appropriate library services to provide access to a curated collection of information resources and evidence-based information collections.” - pg26
- “How does the institution ensure that all researchers have access to support services as needed (for example, statistical advice, library services)?” - pg29
This recognition reinforces the strategic importance of health librarians in enabling ethical, evidence-informed research, and calls on institutions to invest in library services as part of their core research infrastructure.