Increasing value and reducing waste in biomedical research: who's listening?

Abstract

The biomedical research complex has been estimated to consume almost a quarter of a trillion US dollars every year. Unfortunately, evidence suggests that a high proportion of this sum is avoidably wasted. In 2014, The Lancet published a series of five reviews showing how dividends from the investment in research might be increased from the relevance and priorities of the questions being asked, to how the research is designed, conducted, and reported. 17 recommendations were addressed to five main stakeholders-funders, regulators, journals, academic institutions, and researchers. This Review provides some initial observations on the possible effects of the Series, which seems to have provoked several important discussions and is on the agendas of several key players. Some examples of individual initiatives show ways to reduce waste and increase value in biomedical research. This momentum will probably move strongly across stakeholder groups, if collaborative relationships evolve between key players; further important work is needed to increase research value. A forthcoming meeting in Edinburgh, UK, will provide an initial forum within which to foster the collaboration needed.

Evidence-based clinical practice: Overview of threats to the validity of evidence and how to minimise them

“…The threats to validity and the associated waste of clinical research affects all interventions and all diseases [17][18][19][20][21][22] . However, the threats are especially daunting in fields with less accumulated experience in conducting RCTs and more difficulties in identifying rare patients.…”

“…Figure 1 The hierarchy of clinical evidence of random errors (misleading results due to 'play of chance') [11][12][13][14][15][16] . We suggest possible solutions to the threats including establishment of national or transnational research infrastructures like ECRIN to improve clinical research and hereby reduce research waste [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] .…”

Características de reporte e condução de revisões sistemáticas que avaliaram a longevidade de restaurações de resina composta em dentes posteriores

“…Algumas explicações podem estar relacionadas ao grande número de revisões publicadas: algumas agências de fomento requerem que pesquisadores ao submeterem projetos referenciem o projeto com uma RS ou realize uma RS se ainda não existir, países como China vem desenvolvendo uma cultura de pesquisa com grande ênfase na produção desse tipo de estudo e o desenvolvimento de programas de livre acesso de estatística que realizam meta-análise. Além disso, o fato de alguns países incentivarem a produção em massa de artigos (ex: maiores recursos de pesquisas para quem publica maior número de artigos) e a promoção na carreira acadêmica ser baseado no número de artigos publicados podem também estar relacionado ao grande número de RS publicadas 22 .…”

Democratizing Health Data for Translational Research

“…Simultaneously, it has been recognized that the scientific community needs new approaches to make its work sustainable during times of both decreased funding and increased demand for timely and actionable outcomes of research programs. One potential solution to both of these challenges is the adoption of open science models that allow: 1) increased transparency of data and methods, which promotes research reproducibility and rigor [1][2][3][4]; and 2) cumulative efficiencies wherein research tools and the output of research are combined to accelerate the delivery of new knowledge [5][6][7]. For the purposes of this manuscript, we provide the following working definition for open science:…”