Assessing information provided by national funding agencies using the “reducing waste of research” framework

Mona Nasser - Clinical Lecturer in Evidence Based Dentistry

Project Team: Paul Glasziou, Mike Clarke, Iain Chalmers. Nordic partners: Gro Jamtvedt, Hans Lund, Monica Nortvedt, Hanna Nykvist , Kjetil Gundro Brurberg. Waterfall 1961 by MC Escher

Survey of Funders

• Who has been involved in applying for funding for research?

• Have you been asked to reference or conduct a systematic review before submitting your grant proposal?

• Do you know how your funders decide what research should be prioritised?

• Are systematic reviews used by funders to inform decisions on priorities for future research?

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

Funding agency CountryNational Institute for Health Research (NIHR)

England

National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)

Australia

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

Canada

National Institute of Health (NIH) USA

Medical Research Council (MRC) UK

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

• Browsing websites• Using Manuals and Handbooks• Searching websites • Make-up of committees

Note – the project focuses only on information available on the website. We will later contact funders to assessed whether we have accessed appropriate information and interpreted it appropriately

Data Collection

Have you been asked to reference or conduct a systematic review before

submitting your grant proposal?

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

NIHR Yes – It only funds research with a systematic review of existing evidence.

NHMRC No

CIHR Partial - It encourages (but does not require) conduct of a systematic review in proposals for clinical trials. It has a ‘knowledge synthesis‘ funding scheme, but this is not interrelated with funding of primary research.

NIH Partial - It encourages a ‘Check (of) the literature to verify that the exact project you are considering has not been done before’, but it doesn’t specify whether it has to be a systematic review.

MRC No - None of the major grant opportunities require systematic reviews, although the global health clinical trial programme encourages the conduct of a systematic review before request for large-scale clinical trials.

Do funders require applicants for support for primary research to refer to systematic reviews of existing evidence?

Are systematic reviews used by funders to inform decisions on priorities for future research?

Identifying Questions/

Topics

Ranking the Topics and Reaching

ConsensusDec

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implications of research section of Systematic Reviews

Collecting Questions from other resources

and checking whether systematic

reviews are available on that topic

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

NIHR Researchers are involved. Active public involvement is key in its processes

NHMRC Researchers, consumers (if focus on indigenous people, involving the latter). I couldn’t find information about other groups. It wasn’t clear to me whether consumers are observers or decision makers.

CIHR Mostly researchers and academics, sometimes policy makers and in few cases industry or patient representatives. The importance of citizen engagement was recognised but seems they have little influence on decision making.

NIH Round 1- ResearchersRound 2- Researchers and Public

MRC Strong involvement of researchers and private sector (pharma industry). Very limited and selective involvement of public and patient.

Who is involved in decisions on setting priorities in each funding organisation?

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

NIHR Yes

NHMRC No

CIHR No

NIH No

MRC No

Are systematic reviews used by funders to inform priority decisions?

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

Identifying Questions/

Topics

Ranking the Topics and Reaching

ConsensusDec

idin

g on

prio

rities

fo

r Res

earc

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Using systematic reviews as a criterion to inform

ranking decisions

Comparing prioritised topics /questions to published systematic

reviews and then revise or exclude certain topics and

questions

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

NIHR Not Applicable – Only topics with a systematic review would have been included in this step so a criterion isn’t anymore necessary.

NHMRC No

CIHR No – Although ‘originality of proposal’ was a criterion, but there was no systematic check of originality.

NIH No

MRC No

Are systematic reviews used as a criterion to set priorities?

Do funders ensure that research results are published promptly, so that

they can be included in systematic reviews and reduce waste of research?

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

NIHR Yes, Deposited in UK PubMed Central & freely available within 6 months of the journal publisher’s official date of final publication

NHMRC Yes, Deposited in an open access institutional repository within a 12 month period from the date of publication.

CIHR Yes, Deposited in an open access institutional repository within a 12 month period from data of publication.

NIH Yes, any publication arising should be submitted to Pubmed Central expecting to be open access in 12 months.

MRC Yes, freely available within 6 months of the journal publisher’s official date of final publication.

What is the funder’s policy on public access to data from completed research?

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

NIHR No, there are rules for completed research but not protocols.

NHMRC No, there are rules for completed research but not protocols.

CIHR No, there are rules for completed research but not protocols.

NIH No, there are rules for completed research but not protocols.

MRC No, there are rules for completed research but not protocols.

What is the funder’s policy on public access to protocols for completed or ongoing research?

website: http://capsmg.cochrane.orgEmail: mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk

Do they provide funding for others do undertake “research on research” or methods to improve research production such as

reporting guidelines?

NIHR Yes – NIHR has a joint panel for methodology research with MRC.

NHMRC No

CIHR Partially yes - they don’t specifically include it in their general call but they don’t exclude it.

NIH No – there is some methodological research funded in USA but mostly through AHRQ

MRC Yes, MRC has a joint panel for methodology research with NIHR

We know…we need a systematic review to understand whether the suggested new primary research is original or a necessary replication (rather than a wasteful duplication)

We need to learn more…on the best approaches to use systematic reviews in the process of informing or setting priorities for new primary research.