National Research Councils Research Articles

Estimating net energy requirements of male Djallonke sheep

Context Energy requirements in sheep can vary significantly due to various factors, including age, breed, sex and environmental conditions. Genetic selection and crossbreeding further contribute to this variability. Although guidelines from the US and UK national research councils are commonly used for formulating sheep diets, they may not adequately account for the unique characteristics of sheep in Africa. Aims The study aimed to estimate the net maintenance energy requirement of male Djallonke sheep. This estimation will provide a basis for comparing the energy requirements of Djallonke sheep with national recommendations and recent estimates for other sheep breeds. Methods Sixteen entire male Djallonke sheep were selected and grouped by weight. They were then randomly allocated to four treatment groups in a 4 × 4 Latin square design. The sheep were fed to achieve intake levels ranging from 1 to 1.75 multiples of their maintenance energy requirement. Gas exchange data were collected using the GreenFeed system over a 3-day period at the conclusion of each treatment period. Heat production was calculated using the established Brouwer’s equation. A linear regression equation was developed to relate heat production to metabolisable energy intake scaled by metabolic bodyweight to calculate the net energy for maintenance. Key results The estimated net energy for maintenance for male Djallonke sheep was determined to be 0.354 MJ/kg BW0.75. This estimation indicated that the energy requirements of male Djallonke sheep exceeded the recommendations provided by the US National Research Council and the UK Agricultural and Food Research Council. However, it closely aligned with an updated estimate of 0.358 MJ/kg BW0.75. Conclusions Based on the study’s findings, male Djallonke sheep have higher energy requirements for maintenance than what is commonly recommended by existing guidelines. Therefore, it is advisable to update ration formulation software for male Djallonke sheep to better reflect their actual energy requirements for maintenance. Implications These results have practical implications for the formulation of diets and feeding management practices for male Djallonke sheep. Adhering to updated energy requirement estimates can help improve the efficiency and productivity of sheep production in the context of Djallonke sheep farming.

Listening to music for insomnia in adults.

Insomnia is a common problem in modern society. It is associated with reduced quality of life and impairments in physical and mental health. Listening to music is widely used as a sleep aid, but it remains unclear if it can actually improve insomnia in adults. This Cochrane Review is an update of a review published in 2015. To assess the effects of listening to music on sleep in adults with insomnia and to assess the influence of specific variables that may moderate the effect. For this update, we searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, nine other databases and two trials registers up to December 2021. In addition, we handsearched reference lists of included studies, and contacted authors of published studies to identify additional studies eligible for inclusion, including any unpublished or ongoing trials. Randomised controlled trials comparing the effects of listening to music with no treatment or treatment as usual (TAU) in adults complaining of sleep difficulties. Two review authors independently screened records for eligibility, selected studies for inclusion, extracted data and assessed risk of bias of the included studies. We assessed the certainty of the evidence using GRADE. The primary outcomes were sleep quality, insomnia severity, sleep-onset latency, total sleep time, sleep interruption, sleep efficiency and adverse events. Data on the predefined outcome measures were included in meta-analyses when consistently reported by at least two studies that were homogeneous in terms of participants, interventions and outcomes. We undertook meta-analyses using random-effects models. We included 13 studies (eight studies new to this update) comprising 1007 participants. The studies examined the effect of listening to prerecorded music daily, for 25 to 60 minutes, for a period of three days to three months. The risk of bias within the studies varied, with all studies being at high risk of performance bias, because of limited possibilities to blind participants to the music intervention. Some studies were at high risk of detection bias or other bias. Four studies reported funding from national research councils, three studies reported financial support from university sources and one study reported a grant from a private foundation. Five studies did not report any financial support. At the end of the intervention, we found moderate-certainty evidence for improved sleep quality measured with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) in themusic groups compared to no intervention or TAU (mean difference (MD) -2.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) -3.86 to -1.72; 10 studies, 708 participants). The PSQI scale ranges from 0 to 21 with higher scores indicating poorer sleep. The size of the effect indicates an increase in sleep quality of the size of about one standard deviation in favour of the intervention. We found no clear evidence of a difference in the effects of listening to music compared to no treatment or TAU on insomnia severity (MD -6.96, 95% CI -15.21 to 1.28; 2 studies, 63 participants; very low-certainty evidence). We found low-certainty evidence that, compared to no treatment or TAU, listening to music may reduce problems with sleep-onset latency (MD -0.60, 95% CI -0.83 to -0.37; 3 studies, 197 participants), total sleep time (MD -0.69, 95% CI -1.16 to -0.23; 3 studies, 197 participants) and sleep efficiency (MD -0.96, 95% CI -1.38 to -0.54; 3 studies, 197 participants), but may have no effect on perceived sleep interruption (MD -0.53, 95% CI -1.47 to 0.40; 3 studies, 197 participants). In addition, three studies (136 participants) included objective measures of sleep-onset latency, total sleep time, sleep efficiency and sleep interruption and showed that listening to music may not improve these outcomes compared to no treatment or TAU. None of the included studies reported any adverse events. The findings of this review provide evidence that music may be effective for improving subjective sleep quality in adults with symptoms of insomnia. More research is needed to establish the effect of listening to music on other aspects of sleep as well as the daytime consequences of insomnia.

Smart supply chain management in Industry 4.0: the review, research agenda and strategies in North America.

The emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) related to Industry 4.0 play a critical role to enhance supply chain performance. Employing the smart technologies has led to so-called smart supply chains. Understanding how Industry 4.0 and related ICT affect smart supply chains and how smart supply chains evolve with the support of the advanced technologies are vital to practical and academic communities. Existing review works on smart supply chains with ICT mainly rely on the academic literature alone. This paper presents an integrated approach to explore the effects of Industry 4.0 and related ICT on smart supply chains, by combining introduction of the current national strategies in North America, the research status analysis on ICT assisted supply chains from the major North American national research councils, and a systematic literature review of the subject. Besides, we introduce a smart supply chain hierarchical framework with multi-level intelligence. Furthermore, the challenges faced by supply chains under Industry 4.0 and future research directions are discussed as well.

Research priority-setting for human, plant, and animal virology: an online experience for the Virology Institute of the Philippines

BackgroundViral pandemics have had catastrophic consequences on population health and economies. The Philippine government intends to establish the Virology Institute of the Philippines, one of the key areas of which will be virology research. This project aimed to develop the institute’s research agenda across the fields of human, plant, and animal virology.MethodologyKey considerations for the prioritization methodology were (1) the imminent establishment of the Virology Institute of the Philippines, (2) mobility restrictions caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, (3) the timeline to develop the research agenda, and (4) the need to separate the research agenda for the three fields of human, plant, and animal virology. The process was fully conducted online in four steps: stakeholder identification, soliciting research priorities, generating initial research priorities, and final prioritization consultations conducted on Zoom Pro.ResultsTwenty-eight participants attended three online consultations between 21 and 27 July 2020 through Zoom Pro. Participants selected the research prioritization criteria and its weights, and used these to evaluate the research priorities. The final research agenda covers topics in epidemiology, diagnostics, surveillance, biosafety, and genomics.ConclusionThis initiative resulted in the first research agenda for the Virology Institute of the Philippines across the three fields of human, plant, and animal virology. An expert-driven process which places a premium on consensus-building facilitated through online platforms was the most feasible approach to develop the research agenda. This process resulted in an agenda aligned with the mandates of national research councils but leaves gaps on areas such as emerging infectious diseases. Pre-COVID-19 literature expressed apprehensions on the online medium that weakens social ties necessary for consensus. Our experience with changing the mode of consensus-building shows that users will continually adapt to technology. Online tools are currently able to address the limitations of the virtual space.

The impact of Plan S on scholarly journals from less developed European countries

In September 2018, Science Europe (https://www.scienceeurope.org/) launched the cOalition S initiative for increasing Open Access (OA) to research data and publications derived from publicly funded scientific research projects. The backbone of the initiative is Plan S with one main goal: With effect from 2021, scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo (1). Whichever of these three routes is taken, all publications must be published under an open license, preferably the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY), in order to fulfil the requirements defined by the Berlin Declaration. Many European research funders have been endorsing cOAlition S from the very beginning and supporting Plan S as one of the paths to science without publication paywalls. Its aims, principles, and scope are a step forward to open science. Despite this boost, it remains to be seen whether Plan S will have unexpected long-term effects on journals from small or peripheral scientific communities. Many researchers in these communities mainly publish in their domestic journals. Despite limited international reception, these journals can play an important role by increasing access to locally relevant information and helping domestic researchers to improve their publication performance. If the diamond OA publishing model of these journals loses stable national financial support, it would be an additional blow to small scientific communities.

No or low emissions from construction logistics – Just a dream or future reality?

Introduction: Construction sites are among the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the construction industry. Large quantities of construction materials and other resources need to be transported to, within, and from construction sites. Implementation of different construction logistics solutions can reduce the impact from construction. The objectives of this article are to map the status and present the current practice of construction logistics in Norway, and to discuss how different no or low emission construction logistics solutions can be promoted. Methods: Methods applied are a literature review including findings from the recent development of emission free construction sites and qualitative case study with interviews carried out in Norway. Results: Findings indicate that lack of regulations, specific requirements and awareness, and use of traditional methods to avoid risks are some of the challenges for minimizing impact from construction logistics. However, opportunities are also present; mainly driven by political ambitions, improved environmental requirements in public procurement tenders and market demands and ambitions for reductions in emissions and costs. Preliminary results from interviews in Norway support these findings. Conclusions: The study show that the goal of achieving no or low emission from construction site is possible through setting ambitious requirements, good planning and a close and open collaboration between involved stakeholders. Grant support: This work is part of the Joint Programming Initative (JPI) Urban Europe project “Minimizing impact of construction material flows in cities: Innovative Co-Creation”, supported by the national research councils of the participating countries (Sweden, Norway, Austria, Belgium).

Opening the record of science: making scholarly publishing work for science in the digital era

There is increasing concern about the extent to which the modern system of scientific and scholarly publishing serves the best interests of science. The International Science Council, as the global voice for science, and with its membership of 40 international scientific unions and associations and 144 national members, including national academies and research councils, is pursuing a major new initiative on this topic. This sets out a series of durable principles for scientific and scholarly publishing and analyses the extent to which current publishing regimes are consistent with these principles. It identifies serious deficits in the inhibition of access to the record of science, in global inclusion and innovation, in metrics that stimulate perverse behaviour and in the emerging shift of control of the research cycle into commercial hands. A series of virtual meetings involving the international science community, as represented by the Council’s members, will discuss these issues in September 2020, with the intention of creating an international coalition for action and change that will includes key stakeholders, including the library, funding and university communities. It is vital that the novel capabilities offered by the digital revolution are harnessed to disseminate science more efficiently and effectively to the global public good.

Open Access: DOAJ and Plan S, Digitization and Disruption

Open Access: DOAJ and Plan S, Digitization and Disruption

Research misconduct in health and life sciences research: A systematic review of retracted literature from Brazilian institutions.

BackgroundMeasures to ensure research integrity have been widely discussed due to the social, economic and scientific impact of research integrity. In the past few years, financial support for health research in emerging countries has steadily increased, resulting in a growing number of scientific publications. These achievements, however, have been accompanied by a rise in retracted publications followed by concerns about the quality and reliability of such publications.ObjectiveThis systematic review aimed to investigate the profile of medical and life sciences research retractions from authors affiliated with Brazilian academic institutions. The chronological trend between publication and retraction date, reasons for the retraction, citation of the article after the retraction, study design, and the number of retracted publications by author and affiliation were assessed. Additionally, the quality, availability and accessibility of data regarding retracted papers from the publishers are described.MethodsTwo independent reviewers searched for articles that had been retracted since 2004 via PubMed, Web of Science, Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS) and Google Scholar databases. Indexed keywords from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and Descritores em Ciências da Saúde (DeCS) in Portuguese, English or Spanish were used. Data were also collected from the Retraction Watch website (www.retractionwatch.com). This study was registered with the PROSPERO systematic review database (CRD42017071647).ResultsA final sample of 65 articles was retrieved from 55 different journals with reported impact factors ranging from 0 to 32.86, with a median value of 4.40 and a mean of 4.69. The types of documents found were erratum (1), retracted articles (3), retracted articles with a retraction notice (5), retraction notices with erratum (3), and retraction notices (45). The assessment of the Retraction Watch website added 8 articles that were not identified by the search strategy using the bibliographic databases. The retracted publications covered a wide range of study designs. Experimental studies (40) and literature reviews (15) accounted for 84.6% of the retracted articles. Within the field of health and life sciences, medical science was the field with the largest number of retractions (34), followed by biological sciences (17). Some articles were retracted for at least two distinct reasons (13). Among the retrieved articles, plagiarism was the main reason for retraction (60%). Missing data were found in 57% of the retraction notices, which was a limitation to this review. In addition, 63% of the articles were cited after their retraction.ConclusionPublications are not retracted solely for research misconduct but also for honest error. Nevertheless, considering authors affiliated with Brazilian institutions, this review concluded that most of the retracted health and life sciences publications were retracted due to research misconduct. Because the number of publications is the most valued indicator of scientific productivity for funding and career progression purposes, a systematic effort from the national research councils, funding agencies, universities and scientific journals is needed to avoid an escalating trend of research misconduct. More investigations are needed to comprehend the underlying factors of research misconduct and its increasing manifestation.

A Decade of Catalysis, a Mere Moment in Research, but an Exciting Challenge and Success for ChemCatChem and ChemPubSoc Europe

A Decade of Catalysis, a Mere Moment in Research, but an Exciting Challenge and Success for <i>ChemCatChem</i> and ChemPubSoc Europe

Technology as a tool in teaching quantitative biology at the secondary and undergraduate levels: a review.

Since the publication of the National Research Councils Report BIO2010, e orts have increased to better integrate mathematics and biology in undergraduate education. Unfortunately, equivalent e orts to introduce these quantitative topics at the secondary level have been seldom. This could cause differential success of undergraduate students who come from diverse secondary science backgrounds. Undergraduate courses regularly use technology to integrate these two disciplines, and we believe that technology can similarly be used at the secondary level to prevent quantitative achievement mismatch in undergraduate biology programs. In this paper, we review the current uses of technology to teach quantitative biology at the secondary and undergraduate levels, propose needs for further implementation, and address potential barriers to integrating mathematics and biology using technology.

Caregivers' perceptions of emergent literacy programming in public libraries in relation to the National Research Councils' guidelines on quality environments for children

A survey conducted at three Florida library systems examines caregivers' perceptions of emergent literacy programming and how these perceptions compare with the National Research Council's features for quality programs for children. The survey results reveal that caregivers' perceptions of emergent literacy programming align with the National Research Council's features. The data demonstrates that caregivers' perceptions are very positive toward emergent literacy programming in terms of learning and the environment. Caregivers' perceptions of the environment answers were mostly strongly agree. These results were more positive than their perceptions of learning, although they strongly agree that these programs prepare children for school, reading, and social interaction. The survey results will inform public libraries as to how to design, market, and deliver emergent literacy programming to caregivers with very young children.

The transformation of scientific journal publishing: Open access after the Berlin 12 Conference

In the last 10–15 years, Open Access has become a shared vision of many if not most of the world’s national and international research councils. Open Access as a principle is very well established in the international discourse on research policies; however, Open Access as a practice has yet to transform the traditional subscription-based publishing system, which is as vigorous and prosperous as ever, despite its inherent restrictions on access and usage and its remarkable detachment from the potentials of a 21st century web-based publishing system. OA2020 is a transformative initiative trying to bring a new approach to the transactional side of the publishing system and the ways in which its cash flow is organized. Publishing and financial data are brought together in a way to demonstrate that such a switch would indeed be feasible. OA2020 lays out the path for how this transformation could happen so that Open Access to research results would finally be a reality from the moment of their publication.

Let's Talk – Interoperability between University CRIS/IR and Researchfish: A Case Study from the UK

Research funders and research organisations both require feedback on the progress, productivity and quality of the research they support. This information originates with researchers, but may be captured in a variety of systems including University CRIS/IR and funder systems. In 2014 all 7 national Research Councils (collectively referred to as RCUK) implemented a harmonised approach to the collection of research output data, currently supported by Researchfish Ltd (referred to as the Researchfish® system). In 2016 this process is gathering feedback from over 60,000 researchers in all UK Universities, and for funders in the USA, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands, tracking more than £40billion of public and charity research investment and is adding to a dataset of more than 1.5 million outputs.Researchers, research managers and funders want to find ways to capture this data once and achieve wide re-use of the information. Working together University and Research Council officers, Researchfish Ltd. and Jisc have highlighted that it is important for the “interoperability” between research information systems to be improved. These organisations have started a programme of work to improve the bi-directional flow of information between University and funder systems.

Las investigaciones geológicas del Museo de La Plata desde la época del centenario a la del sesquicentenario: 1906-1966

Entre 1884 y 1905, bajo la dirección de Francisco P. Moreno el Museo de la Plata tuvo una clara proyección nacional y fue protagonista del desarrollo del conocimiento geográfico y geológico de diferentes partes del país, especialmente de la Patagonia. En 1905 pasó a integrar la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, situación que determinó la renuncia de F. P. Moreno, La dirección fue asumida por el antropólogo S. Lafone Quevedo y el museo fue organizado en varias escuelas, lo cual significaría, en años posteriores, una casi excluyente acción tendiente a su progresiva integración a la docencia. En 1920 fue designado director el arqueólogo L. M. Torres, quien debió retirarse en 1932 debido a problemas de salud. Entre 1906 y 1934, las investigaciones geológicas fueron limitadas y se circunscribieron fundamentalmente al accionar individual de S. Roth y W. Schiller, con algunos aportes de M. Kantor y E. Herrero Ducloux. Roth mayormente completó y publicó resultados de estudios realizados en la época de Moreno, mientras que Schiller hizo contribuciones sobre la geología de la alta cordillera de Mendoza y San Juan, de las Sierras Australes de Buenos Aires y de la región petrolífera de Comodoro Rivadavia, en general respondiendo a iniciativas ajenas al museo. En 1934 se incorporó J. Frenguelli, quien sería Director de la institución entre 1935 y 1946. Durante las décadas de 1930 y 1940 las investigaciones geológicas originadas en el museo adquirieron importancia y se debieron fundamentalmente a Frenguelli y en menor medida a E. Fossa Mancini, a las que se sumaron los aportes paleontológicos que realizó A. Cabrera, a partir de 1925. Las contribuciones de Frenguelli se focalizaron en el Cenozoico superior y en la estratigrafía y las plantas fósiles de los estratos continentales del Paleozoico superior y Mesozoico inferior. Otro de los aportes institucionales importantes fue la formación de numerosos geólogos, los que a partir de la década de 1940 realizaron estudios desde diferentes instituciones y empresas en todo el país. En 1946 se produjo un quiebre a nivel nacional e institucional que significó el desplazamiento de J. Frenguelli, la transformación del Instituto del Museo en Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, con prioridad en la enseñanza, todo lo cual significó en la década de 1950 la pérdida de la continuidad en la investigación y en las publicaciones. La creación de la CIC y el CONICET y la introducción del sistema de dedicación exclusiva a fines de los 50 sentaron condiciones que en la década de 1960 llevarían a un intento de reiniciar investigaciones planificadas en geología y paleontología.

The Potential Reflections of National Agricultural Research on the Solution of Global Agricultural Issues

Global warming and water availability, loss of biodiversity, impacts of climate changes on agriculture, environmental pollution, food security and safety and renewable energy are worldwide problems affecting agricultural sustainability. In this respect, food safety, climate change, system management and risk management are becoming hot topics in agriculture. Increasing productivity and creating economies of scale, intensive technology and renewable energy use, establishing regional agro-industrial ecologies of life cycle assessment, networking marketing and trade and reducing risk are some proposed solutions. International organizations have been focusing on national and international research projects in order to determine global problems in agricultural sustainability and to diversify proposed solutions. Unfortunately, databases of research projects in the world are not connected for data, data mining, and big data processing purposes yet. Moreover, basic research, applied research, and experimental development do not complement each other. Projects are funded by national scientific and technological research councils. Due to the fact that project final reports and results are mainly published in native languages, such material cannot be utilized for the benefit of global issues. The objective of this study is to examine final reports of some national projects results of Turkey in order to understood well whether they are valuable to translate for international uses or not. We recommend that international organizations; such as OECD, FAO, etc. should collaborate on translating project final reports into English, which would be helpful in coping with global agricultural problems. Long-term surveys in agriculture should also be conducted by all nations to understand agricultural changes and technological development.

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Is research ‘fit-for-purpose’ for realizing sustainable development? More than two decades after the Brundtland report and UNCED Earth summit, the world has now adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Rather than a cause for celebration, this delay should encourage reflection on the role of research in society. Why is it so difficult to realize sustainability in practice? The answer lies in the fact that universities and research centres persist with 19th century methods of data gathering, scholarly analysis, and journal articles. Today’s world needs science in real-time, whether to detect drought, confront Ebola, or assist refugees. Research needs to work faster and embrace 21st century practices including data science, open access, and infographics. A silent revolution is occurring in the ways of organizing and conducting research, enabled by new technology and encouraging work that tackles the key challenges facing society. A variety of new arrangements have come into existence that promote international collaboration, including Horizon 2020 with its emphasis on societal challenges, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which has inspired a family of grand challenges funds on health and development, and the Future Earth joint program of research for global sustainability. These arrangements not only control billions of dollars in research funding, they also influence the strategies of national research councils and international organizations. The result is no less than a transformation in the incentives that reward how researchers invest their time and effort. Why is a revolution needed? Within research, substantial growth in knowledge production coincided with fragmentation among disciplines. One can easily find expertise and publications in soil science or agronomy, yet integrated efforts on food security and climate adaptation remain scarce. Beyond research, society remains largely uninformed, as academics avoid engaging in public debate or policy advice. Research often fails to raise public awareness or inform practitioners regarding the issues facing society and the options for responding to them. For example, research on food security can and must go beyond quantifying how many people are hungry or undernourished. Society needs solutions that connect changes in farm-level production, to how the market mediates access to food, and the ultimate health outcomes among citizens. The emerging vision is one where research helps society understand and respond to global problems. Research that is ‘fit-for-purpose’ demonstrates an ability to bridge ingenuity gaps, address grand challenges, and foster social resilience. Ingenuity gaps concern the knowledge needed to address rising complexity and new vulnerabilities introduced by globalization and technological change. Grand challenges describe a shift in the scale, scope, and ambition of research objectives. Social resilience refer to society's ability to cope with stress and reinvent itself in response to shocks and pressures. In short, together these attributes describe an expectation that research helps society to 'mind the gap', 'think big', and 'bounce'. Research needs to speak back to society. While the journal article and scholarly publications remain important determinants of a research career, they are increasingly supplemented by attention to data visualization, social media, and research impact. Research still needs rigour: deep knowledge of theory and data, and how to uncover patterns and establish explanation. Scientists have a long history of using pie charts, line graphs, and network diagrams to communicate among themselves. Yet research also needs a keen sense of design: an appreciation for how to convey relationships, categories, and magnitude through the creative use of lines, colours, symbols, position and size. Evidence-based illustrations, or infographics, convey complex issues in greater depth than long reports or TV commentaries. Research tells a story: starting with a compelling problem or question, and using data to provide perspective. Rather than offer society potential solutions or policy recommendations, newer techniques allow anyone to interact with data to create their own visualizations and test hypotheses “on demand”. In summary, there is a silent revolution in research for sustainability. Research is expected to help understand and address the problems facing society. The opportunities to engage in research are shifting, rewarding those who are embrace the practices of open science and data, those who are connected to international scientific networks, and those that help society to better understand and solve global problems. Bruce Currie-Alder Regional Director, Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Cairo

Implications of dual practice for universal health coverage.

Making progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) requires that health workers are adequate in numbers, prepared for their jobs and motivated to perform. In establishing the best ways to develop the health workforce, relatively little attention has been paid to the trends and implications of dual practice – concurrent employment in public and private sectors. We review recent research on dual practice for its potential to guide staffing policies in relation to UHC. Many studies describe the characteristics and correlates of dual practice and speculate about impacts, but there is very little evidence that is directly relevant to policy-makers. No studies have evaluated the impact of policies on the characteristics of dual practice or implications for UHC. We address this lack and call for case studies of policy interventions on dual practice in different contexts. Such research requires investment in better data collection and greater determination on the part of researchers, research funding bodies and national research councils to overcome the difficulties of researching sensitive topics of health systems functions.

Transnational reflections on transnational research projects on men, boys and gender relations

This article reflects on the research project, ‘Engaging South African and Finnish youth towards new traditions of non-violence, equality and social well-being’, funded by the Finnish and South African national research councils, in the context of wider debates on research, projects and transnational processes. The project is located within a broader analysis of research projects and projectization (the reduction of research to separate projects), and the increasing tendencies for research to be framed within and as projects, with their own specific temporal and organizational characteristics. This approach is developed further in terms of different understandings of research across borders: international, comparative, multinational and transnational. Special attention is given to differences between research projects that are in the Europe and the EU, and projects that are between the global North and the global South. The theoretical, political and practical challenges of the North-South research project are discussed.

Exploring health researchers' perceptions of policymaking in Argentina: a qualitative study.

Much of the published research on evidence-informed health policymaking in low- and middle-income countries has focused on policymakers, overlooking the role of health researchers in the research-to-policy process. Through 20 semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with researchers in Argentina’s rural northwest and the capital of Buenos Aires, we explore the perspectives, experiences and attitudes of Argentine health researchers regarding the use and impact of health research in policymaking in Argentina. We find that the researcher, and the researcher’s function of generating evidence, is nested within a broader complex system that influences the researcher’s interaction with policymaking. This system comprises communities of practice, government departments/civil society organizations, bureaucratic processes and political governance and executive leadership. At the individual level, researcher capacity and determinants of research availability also play a role in contributing to evidence-informed policymaking. In addition, we find a recurrent theme around ‘lack of trust’ and explore the role of trust within a research system, finding that researchers’ distrust towards policymakers and even other researchers are linked inextricably to the sociopolitical history of Argentina, which contributes to shaping researchers’ identities in opposition to policymakers. For policymakers, national research councils and funders of national health research systems, this article provides a deeper understanding of researchers’ perceptions which can help inform and improve programme design when developing interventions to enhance research utilization and develop equitable and rational health policies. For donors and development agencies interested in health research capacity building and achieving development goals, this research demonstrates a need for investment in building research capacity and training health researchers to interact with the public policy ‘world’ and enhancing research communications and transferability to decision makers. It also highlights an opportunity to invest in implementation research platforms, such as health policy research and analysis institutions.