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| Year : 2014 | Volume
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| Issue : 3 | Page : 277 |
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| Reducing waste in dental research |
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Oliver Hennedige
Secretary General, Asia Pacific Dental Federation/Asia Pacific Regional Organisation of the World Dental Federation (FDI), Executive Director, International College of Continuing Dental Education, Singapore, Diplomat of the International Academy of Mini Dental Implants, New York, USA
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| Date of Web Publication | 7-Aug-2014 |
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How to cite this article:
Hennedige O. Reducing waste in dental research. Indian J Dent Res 2014;25:277 |
The focus of today is on decreasing the waste in biomedical research. The respected pioneer in biomedical publishing, The lancet, earlier this year published a series of articles on ways to increase the gains through the published media. [1]
Biomedical research, on a global scale involves billions of dollars and billions of man hours of labor. It has been estimated that in 2010, on a global level, 240 billion dollars were spent on life science research. [2] Not included in this statement is the valuable time of the millions of biomedical personnel, lab time and the other valuable resources that otherwise may have been put to better use. The reason for this huge investment is to bring in much needed changes for better health systems, reducing pain, suffering conquering diseases and so on. However in this endeavor, like any other business model, there is unfortunately the generation of "waste" that does great injustice to the huge expense.
Any scientific knowledge that does not serve human kind, in one form or other, for instance in the alleviation of pain or suffering, should be considered a waste of resources, especially in a limited resource setting. The series of articles in the Lancet deserves special mention as not only they focused in identifying the problem at several levels but also provide possible solutions to these problems. All countries, especially those with limited resources, should try to implement the check points so as to bring out the optimum use of resources in research and the subsequent publications.
It was also highlighted that the possible relationship between funding and publishing in so-called elite journals (judged so with high impact factor) leads scientists to look for short-term success by short cuts in research protocol. In this process, they would often overlook better and newer models that may take more time, but yield more definite as well as more valid findings. In the current scenario, publishing houses and journals have not come out with sufficient mechanism to combat the "multi-headed hydra" of research misconduct. I hope that young researchers will imbibe the virtue of academic honesty in their work at all time, irrespective of the obstacles they may encounter or the pressures of coming out with publications.
I am lead to believe that Indian dentists are increasing their publication output, especially with huge international collaborative participation. I take this opportunity to wish all dental researchers very successful endeavors at the same time hope that they will follow the new innovative protocols to minimize waste in research. This would in turn bring out the best in dental research for the wider benefit of mankind.
 References | |  |
| 1. | Macleod MR, Michie S, Roberts I, Dirnagl U, Chalmers I, Ioannidis JP, et al. Biomedical research: Increasing value, reducing waste. Lancet 2014;383:101-4. 
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| 2. | Røttingen JA, Regmi S, Eide M, Young AJ, Viergever RF, Ardal C, et al. Mapping of available health research and development data: What's there, what's missing, and what role is there for a global observatory? Lancet 2013;382:1286-307.
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| Authors | | |
Correspondence Address:
Oliver Hennedige
Secretary General, Asia Pacific Dental Federation/Asia Pacific Regional Organisation of the World Dental Federation (FDI), Executive Director, International College of Continuing Dental Education, Singapore, Diplomat of the International Academy of Mini Dental Implants, New York
USA
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/0970-9290.138273
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| This article has been cited by | | 1 |
Reducing research wastage by starting off on the right foot: optimally framing the research question |
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| Nancy E. Mayo, Nikki Ow, Miho Asano, Sorayya Askari, Ruth Barclay, Sabrina Figueiredo, Melanie Hawkins, Stanley Hum, Mehmet Inceer, Navaldeep Kaur, Ayse Kuspinar, Kedar K. V. Mate, Ana Maria Moga, Maryam Mozafarinia | | Quality of Life Research. 2022; | | [Pubmed] | [DOI] | |
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