Impact of Radiation Oncology Research Grants Using the ‘Payback Framework’

Abstract

<h3>Purpose/Objective(s)</h3> Radiation Oncology (RO) societies which provide research grants from membership dues or charitable donations owe it to their funders to assess value-for-money, yet there has been only one published comprehensive report on the outcomes of such RO grants. That previous survey confirmed significant academic impact from the seeding grants awarded to its trainees and Fellows. The purpose of this work was to update and broaden the survey using, to our knowledge for the first time in the RO literature, the "Payback Framework" of Buxton and Hanney (1996), a model employed extensively elsewhere in health research. The hypothesis was that the grants result in significant impact well beyond the purely academic. <h3>Materials/Methods</h3> Between funding years 2010 and 2020, 58 grants were awarded to 41 individuals, median 1 per individual (range 1-4), median US$14k per grant (range $3.5k-$18k). Five recipients of failed projects were excluded. The remaining 36 recipients of 51 grants undertook a voluntary, on-line, 10 question survey, including tick-box and free text responses, which assessed grant outcomes, factors promoting project success and perceptions of the grant process. Data collection and checking extended to 31 January 2022. <h3>Results</h3> The survey response rate was 100% (36/36). Objective academic outcomes attributable, at least in part, to the grants included 103 conference presentations (52 posters, 51 oral), 59 publications, 27 consequential grants totaling US$4.5M, 21 awards/prizes and 18 higher degrees. Broader impacts included perceived contributions to changes in clinical decision making (72% of recipients) or radiotherapy techniques (61%), enabling of subsequent research (56%), development of clinical guidelines (53%) or novel research tools (19%), and recruitment of research assistant(s) (19%). The three most important factors reported to contribute to project success were the RO grant (83% of recipients), networking (81%) and local infrastructure (81%). The grant program was rated very positively. <h3>Conclusion</h3> This updated survey has confirmed continuing significant academic output from its RO research grants but has also revealed substantial broader perceived impact using the Payback Framework. However, there is no published RO work with which to compare these findings and we would encourage other RO societies to report their grant outcomes using a similar framework.