Abstract
BackgroundHealth research has scientific, social and political impacts. To achieve such impacts, several institutions need to participate; however, health research funding institutions are seldom nominated in the literature as essential players. The attention they have received has so far focused mainly on their role in knowledge translation, informing policy-making and the need to organise health research systems. In this article, we will focus solely on the governance of national health research funding institutions. Our objectives are to identify the main functions of governance for such institutions and actionable governance functions. This research should be useful in several ways, including in highlighting, tracking and measuring the governance trends in a given funding institution, and to forestall low-level governance.MethodsFirst, we reviewed existing frameworks in the grey literature, selecting seven relevant documents. Second, we developed an integrated framework for health research funding institution governance and management.Third, we extracted actionable information for governance by selecting a mix of North American, European and Asian institutions that had documentation available in English (e.g. annual report, legal status, strategy).ResultsThe framework contains 13 functions – 5 dedicated to governance (intelligence acquisition, resourcing and instrumentation, relationships management, accountability and performance, and strategy formulation), 3 dedicated to management (priority-setting, financing and knowledge transfer), and 5 dedicated to transversal logics that apply to both governance and management (ethics, transparency, capacity reinforcement, monitoring and evaluation, and public engagement).ConclusionsHerein, we provide a conceptual contribution for scholars in the field of governance and health research as well as a practical contribution, with actionable functions for high-level managers in charge of the governance of health research funding institutions.
Highlights
Health research has scientific, social and political impacts
Research governance needs careful consideration, for the sake of good governance and for the added benefits gained from an efficient health research sector in terms of the health of the population
While there is no international consensus on the best indicators for health research [7], and there are limitations inherent to its metrics, there is consensus that the benefits of health research require counting, and that “how health research systems should best be organized is moving up the agenda of bodies such as the World Health Organization” [9]
Summary
To achieve such impacts, several institutions need to participate; health research funding institutions are seldom nominated in the literature as essential players. Several institutions need to participate; health research funding institutions are seldom nominated in the literature as essential players The attention they have received has so far focused mainly on their role in knowledge translation, informing policy-making and the need to organise health research systems. This research should be useful in several ways, including in highlighting, tracking and measuring the governance trends in a given funding institution, and to forestall low-level governance. Research in general [1], has scientific, social and political impacts [2]. A comprehensive framework would provide tools to compare systems, facilitate the identification of the range of options and guide the measurement of their characteristics in order to point out ideas for complementary arrangements
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