Improving access to research data in Europe

doi:10.1136/bmj.39409.633576.BE

BMJ 2008;336:287-288 (9 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.39409.633576.BE

Editorials

Improving access to research data in Europe

The European Commission needs to promote access to the datawhose collection it has financed

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The year 2007 marks the beginning of the European Commission’sseventh framework programme for research and technological development,its main vehicle for funding research over the next seven years.It is more ambitious than its antecedent—the sixth frameworkprogramme—with a large increase in funding (63%) and thecreation of a European Research Council. Health research hasbeen boosted, having been allocated ${euro}$ 6bn (£4.3bn; $9bn)of the overall budget of ${euro}$ 50.5bn. Yet the seventh framework programmehas done little to promote access to the data whose collectionit will finance.

This lack of concrete policies on access to data in Europe contrastswith the proliferation of wider international initiatives overrecent years. Such initiatives have been particularly successfulin genomics and proteomics,¹ and more recently in the fieldof chemistry,² but they have also shown promise in health. Examplesin the United Kingdom include the policies of the Medical ResearchCouncil . . . [Full text of this article]

Philipa Mladovsky, research officer¹, Elias Mossialos, professor of health policy and director of LSE Health¹, Martin McKee, professor of European public health²

¹ European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Health, London WC2A 2AE, ² European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT

p.mladovsky@lse.ac.uk

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

Technorati What's this?

Stronger European medical research: Trish Groves
BMJ 2008 336: 341-342. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Balancing potential risks and benefits of using confidential data: Christina Davies and Rory Collins
BMJ 2006 333: 349-351. [Full Text] [PDF]

Confidentiality of personal health information used for research: Dipak Kalra, Renate Gertz, Peter Singleton, and Hazel M Inskip
BMJ 2006 333: 196-198. [Full Text] [PDF]

Pharmaceutical industry sponsorship and research outcome and quality: systematic review: Joel Lexchin, Lisa A Bero, Benjamin Djulbegovic, and Otavio Clark
BMJ 2003 326: 1167-1170. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]