The $400 million donated to the health and medical research sector every year could be at risk if the Federal Government's Medical Research Future Fund goes ahead, a survey suggests.

Research Australia says a survey found four out of the 10 people who donate regularly are less likely to do so once the new fund is established with money from the GP co-payment.

Research Australia chief executive Elizabeth Foley says the issue is being raised at the Philanthropy for Health and Medical Research Conference in Melbourne today.

"Anecdotally, we've got evidence and reports that donors were ringing up institutions like the Garvan Institute, Macular Degeneration Foundation and the like saying, 'Well, you're covered now; you don't need to donate; the Government's going to increase health and medical research expenditure'," she said.

"So we decided to put these questions into our polling, just to see how widespread that belief system was, and we found that four out of 10 regular donors thought that they might donate less next year if the Government plans for the Future Fund went ahead."

Ms Foley says it will take a decade for new Medical Research Future Fund to get going.

"I was surprised that there was so poor understanding of when this Medical Research Future Fund would happen and the fact that it's actually going to take about a decade before it gets to the $1 billion payout that's going to go ahead," she said.

"I guess it raises the question in the public's mind as [to] how much is enough for the country to be spending on health and medical research?"

Philanthropy played major role in cochlear implant

Australians currently donate about $400 million to health and medical research - about 10 per cent of the nation's total philanthropic "pie".

Ms Foley says such philanthropy has been vital in revolutionary developments such as the cochlear implant and it is a role that government and commercial funding is unlikely to play.

"A really good example of that is our highly successful cochlear implants, which really changed deafness and hearing in the whole world," she said.

"Initially, research was undertaken in the 1960s. Now you'll recall that the concept of the $6 million man, the bionic man, didn't come until the 70s.

"In the 1960s, we weren't even imagining... the fact that you could have a bionic ear, so the scientific establishment weren't thinking like that.

"So you can imagine the Government isn't going to fund things like that, that are seen to be so high-risk, contentious, and that's where philanthropy has a really important role to play."

Ms Foley says philanthropy has a vital role in the early stages of high-risk new concepts.

"It wasn't until philanthropy and that research had de-risked that project, proved that the concept was doable, that then it got government funding to lead to commercialisation," she said.

"What a success story Cochlear's been in terms of an international organisation that employs a lot of Australians and has made the difference to hundreds of thousands of people's lives."

Australia lagging behind other countries in medical research funding

Ms Foley says the medical research sector needs to do a better job of communicating with their regular donors.

"I think this has been a bit of a shock reaction of saying, 'Oh ok, well that's going to be looked after now, and maybe I can look at other areas where I think there is more philanthropic need'," she said.

"It's going to be nine years before this fund, should it get through Parliament, starts to pay a billion dollars.

"I think in two or three years' time, it's going to pay $20 million as a first payout - that's compared to the $800 million that's already invested."

Ms Foley says Australia is lagging behind in the provision of medical research funding, so it is vital that funding continues to come from a number of sources.

"This level of government expenditure only brings it up to OECD average levels. So we're going to 0.09 to 0.11 of a per cent of the GDP, and that's at the level that Britain is at and Canada is at," she said.

"At the moment we're spending the level Spain is at, as a percentage of GDP, and we're nowhere near the United States."