Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
In order to fulfill the implied contract between researchers and the participants of research, trial results need to be disseminated. Patients and careers have identified publication and dissemination as one of the key areas of research wastage that they are concerned about.
Australian research has reported the time lag between when funding was allocated by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and when results were published. Of trials that were funded between 2008 and 2011 only 50% had been published. The median time was 7.1 years after funding had been received. This research wastage was estimated to be AUD $30 million over a 3 year period.
The Health Research Council (HRC) in New Zealand is the “crown agency which is responsible managing the Government’s investment in health research”. The HRC funds research Programmes (up to $5 million of funding over five years) and Projects (up to $1.2 million over three years). These Programmes and Projects have been selected through a rigorous peer review system.
Objectives:
To determine the length of time to publication for publicly funded research in New Zealand.
Methods:
We investigated Projects and Programmes funded by the HRC from 2006-2014. The HRC supplied us with the collated Programme and Project information publicly available on their website.
In order to determine if researchers had disseminated their research findings we undertook a search of the literature databases using investigators names and subject area. To find clinical trial registrations we searched WHO ICTRP & Clinical trials.gov and for conference publications and journal articles we searched MEDLINE, Embase and Google Scholar. Searches were conducted from December 2019- February 2020.
Results:
There were a total of 374 Programmes and Projects funded over this time.
We were able to identify published findings for 191 of these (51%) which means 183 (49%) of the Programmes and Projects that were publicly funded, had not published results that were able to be found in peer-reviewed journals. This unpublished research had received in total $258,988,275 NZD. Data will also be presented on time to publication for those published Programmes and Projects and a more in depth look by discipline and funding level will be discussed.
Conclusions:
There is serious concern about the level of dissemination of publicly funded research. Funding research granting bodies need additional resources in order to actively monitor funded projects. This could ensure that dissemination of results are achieved. Research funding organisations should also consider levers to encourage publication of complete and usable research results such as making public the outputs of their own monitoring processes (as per the WHO joint statement on public disclosure of results from clinical trials).
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
Failure to disseminate clinical research is a betrayal of the relationship between researchers and consumers.
In order to fulfill the implied contract between researchers and the participants of research, trial results need to be disseminated. Patients and careers have identified publication and dissemination as one of the key areas of research wastage that they are concerned about.
Australian research has reported the time lag between when funding was allocated by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and when results were published. Of trials that were funded between 2008 and 2011 only 50% had been published. The median time was 7.1 years after funding had been received. This research wastage was estimated to be AUD $30 million over a 3 year period.
The Health Research Council (HRC) in New Zealand is the “crown agency which is responsible managing the Government’s investment in health research”. The HRC funds research Programmes (up to $5 million of funding over five years) and Projects (up to $1.2 million over three years). These Programmes and Projects have been selected through a rigorous peer review system.
Objectives:
To determine the length of time to publication for publicly funded research in New Zealand.
Methods:
We investigated Projects and Programmes funded by the HRC from 2006-2014. The HRC supplied us with the collated Programme and Project information publicly available on their website.
In order to determine if researchers had disseminated their research findings we undertook a search of the literature databases using investigators names and subject area. To find clinical trial registrations we searched WHO ICTRP & Clinical trials.gov and for conference publications and journal articles we searched MEDLINE, Embase and Google Scholar. Searches were conducted from December 2019- February 2020.
Results:
There were a total of 374 Programmes and Projects funded over this time.
We were able to identify published findings for 191 of these (51%) which means 183 (49%) of the Programmes and Projects that were publicly funded, had not published results that were able to be found in peer-reviewed journals. This unpublished research had received in total $258,988,275 NZD. Data will also be presented on time to publication for those published Programmes and Projects and a more in depth look by discipline and funding level will be discussed.
Conclusions:
There is serious concern about the level of dissemination of publicly funded research. Funding research granting bodies need additional resources in order to actively monitor funded projects. This could ensure that dissemination of results are achieved. Research funding organisations should also consider levers to encourage publication of complete and usable research results such as making public the outputs of their own monitoring processes (as per the WHO joint statement on public disclosure of results from clinical trials).
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
Failure to disseminate clinical research is a betrayal of the relationship between researchers and consumers.