Health research in the European Union: over-controlled but under-measured?

Abstract

Research will only increase the sum of human knowledge if it is accessible to those who can make use of it. In recent years, the funders, providers and users of research have been placing increasing emphasis on communicating results1 by ensuring that the findings are identifiable, freely accessible and understandable.2 Yet there is still a great deal to be done.3 For example, one study found that, nine years later, only 53% of research reported in conference abstracts had ever been published as full reports.4 In another recent Australian study, policy makers reported difficulty in accessing relevant research and only one-third of researchers had implemented strategies to inform policy makers of their findings.5 In this commentary we describe our experiences in conducting a European Union (EU)-funded project, Health Research for Europe (HR4E) that sought to assemble and disseminate findings from health-relevant research within the EU’s Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes (FP5 and FP6). We offer a number of key lessons from the project that are relevant to future EU-funded research programmes. ### In search of European health research We examined health–related projects funded within the FP5 and FP6 programmes (∼5000) to assess the impact of EU research on policy and practice (K. Ernst et al., submitted for publication). These projects can be found in Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS)—the European Commission’s Publication Office ‘information space’ that purports to contain details of all EU research and development activities and projects (Box 1). It is available in searchable form at http://cordis.europa.eu/home_en.html. ### Box 1 CORDIS Mission Statement CORDIS, the Community Research and Development Information Service for Science, Research and Development, is the official source of information on the Seventh framework programme (FP7) calls for proposals; it offers interactive web facilities that links together researchers, policymakers, managers and key players in the field of …