An estimated $170 billion of research funding is wasted each year because its outcomes cannot be used [1]. The waste occurs during 5 stages of research production: question selection, study design, research conduct, publication, and reporting [2,3]. Much of this waste appears to be avoidable or remediable, but there are few proposed solutions. 

What should Cochrane do to address this problem? To get ideas from the community, we circulated (June 2016) a survey to 90 people who attended the Research Waste/EQUATOR Conference (Edinburg 2015) and are also in involved one or more Cochrane Groups. We asked their opinion about what Cochrane could do to reduce research waste and support the REWARD Alliance work. 29 people responded to the survey (response rate of 33%).  During the Cochrane Colloquium in Seoul, a Special Session was organized to present the survey results as well as other initiatives to reduce research waste and to discuss Cochrane’s role further.

Key messages from the survey and the Special Session include:

• Support priority setting processes for systematic reviews. All Cochrane Review Groups are already encouraged to engage in a formal prioritization process, and many Cochrane Review Groups are already defining their priorities and examples are being documented. However, the processes followed to define the priorities vary, and it also remains a challenge to include priorities of disadvantaged groups and low and middle income countries. Not surprisingly, about 60% of survey respondents indicated Cochrane could do more in priority setting, for example by being more inclusive and by developing a clearer and more consistent process.
• Advocate for systematic reviews with funding organizations: 86% of respondents to the survey felt that Cochrane could do more in working with research funders in advocating systematic reviews be conducted prior to funding new research.
• Speed up the ‘empty review’ process: 62% of survey respondents indicated that ‘empty reviews’ (reviews that have no studies eligible for inclusion or only included a single small RCT) are very to extremely important. “Empty reviews are important but they ought to take weeks not months, at least once the search is complete. As soon as you see the review is empty, getting that out should be very, very quick.” In response to this concern, Cochrane will change the focus of ‘empty reviews’ from guiding clinical practices to identifying research gaps and stimulating further research in relevant areas. A pilot to change the editorial process for empty reviews will take place in 2017.
• Work with partners to strengthen reporting of research: 60% of survey respondents felt that Cochrane should do more in ensuring better reporting of research and research results, among other in clinical trial registries, especially through working with strategic partners such as AllTrials and WHO ICTRP.
• Automate the review process: The production of more rapid reviews is important and automation tools are a means to do this. Project Transform is an important step in this direction, but will need continued contribution from the Cochrane community and beyond to succeed.

To further stimulate and promote research in this area, Cochrane announced the Cochrane-REWARD prize and is now calling for nominations for the 2017 prize, which should be submitted by 28 February 2017. Detailed information about the submission process can be found on the Cochrane website.

We look forward to receiving many submissions for the prize and to receiving any other suggestion for ways in which Cochrane can contribute to reducing waste in research.

Please contact Sylvia de Haan for further information.

References:

1. Chalmers I, Glasziou P. Avoidable waste in the production and reporting of research evidence. Lancet. 2009 Jul 4;374(9683):86-9.
2. Macleod MR, Michie S, Roberts I, et al. Biomedical research: increasing value, reducing waste. Lancet. 2014 Jan 11;383(9912):101-4.
3. Glasziou P, Altman DG, Bossuyt P, et al. Reducing waste from incomplete or unusable reports of biomedical research. Lancet. 2014 Jan 18;383(9913):267-76.