Global priorities for research and the relative importance of different research outcomes: an international Delphi survey of malaria research experts

Abstract

BackgroundAs global research investment increases, attention inevitably turns to assessing and measuring the outcomes and impact from research programmes. Research can have many different outcomes such as producing advances in scientific knowledge, building research capacity and, ultimately, health and broader societal benefits. The aim of this study was to test the use of a Delphi methodology as a way of gathering views from malaria research experts on research priorities and eliciting relative valuations of the different types of health research impact.MethodsAn international Delphi survey of 60 malaria research experts was used to understand views on research outcomes and priorities within malaria and across global health more widely.ResultsThe study demonstrated the application of the Delphi technique to eliciting views on malaria specific research priorities, wider global health research priorities and the values assigned to different types of research impact. In terms of the most important past research successes, the development of new anti-malarial drugs and insecticide-treated bed nets were rated as the most important. When asked about research priorities for future funding, respondents ranked tackling emerging drug and insecticide resistance the highest. With respect to research impact, the panel valued research that focuses on health and health sector benefits and informing policy and product development. Contributions to scientific knowledge, although highly valued, came lower down the ranking, suggesting that efforts to move research discoveries to health products and services are valued more highly than pure advances in scientific knowledge.ConclusionsAlthough the Delphi technique has been used to elicit views on research questions in global health this was the first time it has been used to assess how a group of research experts value or rank different types of research impact. The results suggest it is feasible to inject the views of a key stakeholder group into the research prioritization process and the Delphi approach is a useful tool for eliciting views on the value or importance of research impact. Future work will explore other methods for assessing and valuing research impact and test the feasibility of developing a composite tool for measuring research outcomes weighted by the values of different stakeholders.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12936-016-1628-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

International consultation on long-term global health research priorities, research capacity and research uptake in developing countries

“…DfID used this public survey as part of a wider consultation exercise, which included internal and external sources of feedback, and comprising a Delphi survey of infectious disease experts [ 10 ]. The wider process enabled targeted feedback to be combined with the public-facing open access nature of the public consultation.…”

“…It could also suggest support for a change in approach to infectious disease research from population wide methods, to concentrating on accessing hard to reach groups and emerging threats. This suggests an important realisation from participants that the important agenda of infectious disease has not been dealt with [ 10 , 18 , 19 ], although there are new emerging threats that should not be overlooked as funders prioritise future investments. Owing to the already very high priority and associated funding given to infectious diseases, it is possibly not surprising that respondents felt this was going to be less important in the future.…”

Malaria vector control tools in emergency settings: What do experts think? Results from a DELPHI survey

“…Delphi surveys are based on the principle that structured expert group participation from differing perspectives is more valid than individual judgements. They are conducted with a panel of experts through an iterative multi-stage process and can provide insight when observational or experimental data are limited [ 4 , 5 ]. Typically, a Delphi survey involves a specified number of question rounds, each of which is followed by feedback on the degree of group consensus to participants.…”

Control of Plasmodium falciparum infection by human natural killer cells

“…In a recent survey of priorities of malaria research, the need to understand the mechanism of artemisinin-resistance, as well as development of new drugs to combat artemisinin-resistance are ranked as top priorities. Interestingly, with the development of RTS,S, the priority of developing a malaria vaccine has declined (Mulligan and Conteh 2016). In developed nations, one of the top priorities is the development of rapid and accurate malaria detection and surveillance kits (CDC 2017).…”

“…In my opinion, I feel that one of the reason is that the exact mechanisms and signalling pathways involved in immune recognition of parasites have yet to be fully characterized. Sadly, in a survey of most important developments in malaria research, molecular biology and basic science ranked the lowest (Mulligan and Conteh 2016). As such, on top of actively screening panels of drugs for new drugs against malaria, it is also imperative to fully characterize the pathways involved in iRBC recognition by immune cells.…”