The negative effect of red tape on research

Advancing health through evidence assisted decisions with health policy and systems research program: a qualitative evaluation of a national health research grant management process in the Philippines

BACKGROUND

Health policy and systems research (HPSR) has influenced Philippine policies, including tobacco control, mental health, and COVID-19. The Department of Health (DOH) Philippines and Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) launched the Advancing Health through Evidence-Assisted Decisions (AHEAD) with HPSR program in 2017, aiming to build a community of researchers and decision-makers committed to evidence production and utilization. Research systems employ grant management processes for transparency and accountability in research funding, preventing waste, fraud, and misuse of funds.

METHODS

This study evaluated AHEAD-HPSR's grant management using surveys, interviews, and focus groups to document (1) grant administration processes implemented by DOH and PCHRD, and (2) experiences of grantees, program managers, staff, and policymakers. Data were initially analyzed through the USA Grant Accountability Office's Federal Grant Life Cycle, with new themes created as they emerged. The study identified processes and gaps in the research grant life cycle stages: design/redesign, pre-award, award, implementation, closeout, and research dissemination and utilization.

RESULTS

Identification of research areas for the grant are identified using national and departmental research priorities. While Calls for Proposals are posted publicly, researchers that have previously worked with policymakers are contacted directly to submit proposals. The evaluation found that research is delayed by bureaucracies in grant administration, particularly in financial reporting and ethics review processes. Complying with the terminal financial report was identified as the most challenging part of the grant process due to immense auditing requirements. Grantees recommend the simplification of bureaucracy for fund release to enable them to focus on research work.

CONCLUSION

This study contributes to the limited literature on health research grant management in developing countries. Valuable information and recommendations were contributed by stakeholders in this evaluation. These are manifestations of a continuing interest and desire to make health policy and systems research in the Philippines more robust and relevant. It is imperative for the program to continually evolve and build systems most applicable to its multidisciplinary context.

The Department of Health's research governance framework remains an impediment to multi-centre studies: findings from a national descriptive study

Objective

We describe our experience of using the standard application form, designed to streamline applications for multicentre research, to seek approval from all primary care organizations (PCOs) in England and Wales to undertake a single telephone interview with a health service manager.

Design

We sent applications ( n=316), by email to each PCO, or consortium of PCOs, attaching a completed standard application form, the 15 required documents, and the approval we had been granted by the lead NHS organization. We maintained detailed records of the responses to our application, subsequent correspondence, additional paperwork requested, and time spent on the approval process.

Setting

The UK Research Governance Framework, which regulates all research conducted in health and social care settings.

Participants

All PCOs in England and Wales.

Interventions

None.

Main outcome measures

Time taken to obtain approval to undertake a telephone interview with a health service manager.

Results

We were unable to establish contact with 13 (4%) PCOs. Six months after submitting our application we had received approval from 259/316 (82%) PCOs and were still awaiting a verdict from 41 (13%). The median time to approval was 56 days (IQR 42-72). Overall, an estimated 318 staff-hours were spent completing supplementary forms, providing additional information and chasing up dormant applications.

Conclusions

Recent initiatives to ‘streamline’ research governance approval have failed to address the problems that face researchers undertaking multi-centre studies. There is an urgent need to develop a simpler process that allows low risk research to take place without threatening staff morale and endangering the quality of the research outputs. In the meantime, we advise researchers to allow far greater time than might reasonably be envisioned to obtain research governance approval.

Regulation and the social licence for medical research

Regulation and governance of medical research is frequently criticised by researchers. In this paper, we draw on Everett Hughes' concepts of professional licence and professional mandate, and on contemporary sociological theory on risk regulation, to explain the emergence of research governance and the kinds of criticism it receives. We offer explanations for researcher criticism of the rules and practices of research governance, suggesting that these are perceived as interference in their mandate. We argue that, in spite of their complaints, researchers benefit from the institutions of governance and regulation, in particular by the ways in which regulation secures the social licence for research. While it is difficult to answer questions such as: "Is medical research over-regulated?" and "Does the regulation of medical research successfully protect patients or promote ethical conduct?", a close analysis of the social functions of research governance and its relationship to risk, trust, and confidence permits us to pose these questions in a more illuminating way.

The Department of Health's research governance framework remains an impediment to multi-centre studies: findings from a national descriptive study

OBJECTIVE

We describe our experience of using the standard application form, designed to streamline applications for multi-centre research, to seek approval from all primary care organizations (PCOs) in England and Wales to undertake a single telephone interview with a health service manager.

DESIGN

We sent applications (n=316), by email to each PCO, or consortium of PCOs, attaching a completed standard application form, the 15 required documents, and the approval we had been granted by the lead NHS organization. We maintained detailed records of the responses to our application, subsequent correspondence, additional paperwork requested, and time spent on the approval process.

SETTING

The UK Research Governance Framework, which regulates all research conducted in health and social care settings.

PARTICIPANTS

All PCOs in England and Wales.

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Time taken to obtain approval to undertake a telephone interview with a health service manager.

RESULTS

We were unable to establish contact with 13 (4%) PCOs. Six months after submitting our application we had received approval from 259/316 (82%) PCOs and were still awaiting a verdict from 41 (13%). The median time to approval was 56 days (IQR 42-72). Overall, an estimated 318 staff-hours were spent completing supplementary forms, providing additional information and chasing up dormant applications.

CONCLUSIONS

Recent initiatives to 'streamline' research governance approval have failed to address the problems that face researchers undertaking multi-centre studies. There is an urgent need to develop a simpler process that allows low risk research to take place without threatening staff morale and endangering the quality of the research outputs. In the meantime, we advise researchers to allow far greater time than might reasonably be envisioned to obtain research governance approval.

Personalized medicine: new perspectives - new ethics?

Are new concepts in biomedical ethics required to keep pace with the developments in post-Human Genome Project (HGP) genomics? This paper traces the place of ethics in the post-HGP landscape. The need for a revision of the approach taken by biomedical ethics toward questions in genomics has been appreciated for years. Traditional biomedical ethics, led by the protection paradigm, was devised to serve a very different context. Today, compelling ethical questions arise from the tension between individual and collective interests in the context of population-based data collection and research. The collection of phenotype data, and the development of new sequencing technologies, raises burning questions that call for innovative tools and models in ethics. Future developments that will likely include the routine availability of personal genome information, and the advent of systems biology as a framework for interpretation, will require ongoing flexibility and a creative approach.