A vision for building research capacity in the tropical North

Tropical Australia covers a vast area, is relatively sparsely populated and the population faces a surprising range of unique health problems: social,cultural, remote, Indigenous, service-related, bio-security and tropical diseases to name a few. The north shares key international borders: to the northwest is Indonesia, to the north is Papua New Guinea, and to the east are the South Pacific island nations and territories. Indeed, our closest international border with Papua New Guinea marks one of the biggest health disparities on earth. In 2011, the UNDP Human Development Index for Australia ranked 2nd to Norway and while PNG ranked 153.