The Board of Higher Education is authorized to distribute funds for the pursuit of various health care research projects.
     (a) Such projects would be concerned with the interrelationship between the provision of health care and education and health care manpower, particularly in the areas of developing new kinds of health professionals for innovative types of health care systems. In addition, these projects would also be concerned with the development of career ladders allowing for upward mobility in the health fields. This research would be carried out through the health care institutions, the health education institutions, and the various community groups involved in such programs to develop data and define programs based on these data that would permit the entry of sufficient numbers of new and traditional types of health care personnel into the health care system.
     (b) The Board of Higher Education would be empowered to contract with appropriate agencies to perform these research projects.