Online international research register launched
pharmafile | February 23, 2011 | News story | Research and Development | CRD, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, Department of Health, NIHR, National Institute for Health Research, Prospero, clinical research, health research register
The UK government has backed the creation of a free, international online register to improve the transparency of health research.
It has been set up by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), is funded by the Department of Health, and is open to the public.
The NIHR will require registration from all researchers it commissions to undertake systematic reviews, which should in turn lead to an increase in reliable estimates about the effects of interventions, the government says.
“Duplication of systematic reviews is commonplace and it is increasingly important that knowledge is shared efficiently to maximise the use of available research resources worldwide,” said Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Department’s director general of R&D.
As well as avoiding doubling up, it would also make it more difficult for researchers to cherry-pick what they make public, the organisers say.
“A prospective register of systematic reviews submitted at the protocol stage will increase transparency and guard against selective reporting,” explained CRD director Professor Lesley Stewart.
The register would make it “obvious if the research that is published differs from what was planned at the outset”, Stewart added.
Health minister Lord Howe said the register, called PROSPERO, would carry systematic reviews for research about health and social care from all around the world.
It is produced and maintained by the CRD, which is both part of the NIHR and a department of the University of York.
Transparency is a key current theme in pharma, whether in terms of greater access to research or to other documentation.
Initiatives such as GlaxoSmithKline’s ‘Open Lab’ at its R&D hub in Tres Cantos Campus, Spain, allow information exchange between scientists worldwide – in this case on diseases of the developing world.
And late last year the European Medicines Agency agreed to give greater access to its data on medicines for human use, after heavy criticism from the European Ombudsman.
The new PROSPERO register is available to view online here.
Adam Hill
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